The Dimension Shift
by Dream Red
Summary: An accident in the Department of Mysteries forces Harry fourteen years into the future where he finds himself trapped in the middle of four warring factions in a much changed Wizarding World. Independent Dark Harry.
1. Prologue

**The Dimension Shift: Future**

**Genre:** Mystery, Action  
**Pairings:** Harry Potter/Su Li  
**Spoilers:** Yes, there will be bits and pieces from all the books.  
**Warnings:** Graphic violence in later chapters, cursing, and some sexual themes.  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters in the books, the HP universe, or the majority of magical objects. All those belong to J.K.Rowling.

**Summary:** An accident in the Department of Mysteries forces Harry fourteen years into the future where he finds himself trapped in the middle of four warring factions in a much changed Wizarding World.

**Chapter One: Prologue**

Clouds of dust and glass shards shrouded the small group from the Death Eater's sight, and Harry felt a strong grip on his arm, urging him on. A swift flash of bushy hair told him that the hand was Hermione, and glimpses of black robes and red hair told him that his friends were close on their heels.

"Get them!" he heard Lucius Malfoy scream over the exclamations and curses of his companions, and as he glanced back he could make out shapes swirling within the mist of broken glass and dust before they broke free from it, and then he was running in earnest, drawing closer to Hermione, sprinting neck and neck, another glance back showing the twisted up face of the Death Eater who'd caught sight of them as they darted between the shelves.

Hermione grabbed his arm again, dragging him forwards, and together they barrelled through the door, Harry lagging as he twisted to cry 'STUPEFY!' and send the Death Eater following them tumbling to the ground. A moment later he found himself spun out of orbit and balance as Hermione let go of his arm. He was just in time to see her slam the door and turn back towards him with surprise written across her features, before something cool touched his skin and he was tumbling backwards through it. He saw a surface that rippled above him and then something in his chest twisted and writhed, and the glassy cocoon around him ballooned outwards and contracted.

He contacted with the ground and winced, one hand cradling the prophecy to his chest, the other immediately going for his wand and coming up empty. Hesitantly, he looked up to find the outside world distorted by what looked like a giant soap bubble surrounding him, wavering and pulsing. Hermione had drawn closer, and she was mouthing something to him, but within the bubble all was silent.

Harry opened his mouth to tell her that she should speak up, that he couldn't hear her, and could she please get him out because whatever was about to happen he was sure he wouldn't like, when the bubble suddenly seemed to make its mind up and resolved into a smooth, solid ball.

A moment later, the world outside twisted and Harry's vision tunnelled and faded.

* * *

"…forced to contact Arnold Peasgood. It all depends on how much he's aware of, really."

Harry winced, eyelids fluttering a little, lips moving as he tried to link up the ache that ran throughout his body to his last moment of consciousness. He'd been about to say something…but what?

"He's-"

"I'm aware of that. Check the restraints."

At the word 'restraints', Harry jerked his eyes open and flexed the muscles in his limbs only to find them tugged back as if bound by invisible bonds. Whatever had happened, whatever had gone wrong, he knew that this wasn't a situation he wanted to be in, not at all. There was a sharp faced woman in front of him who'd obviously halted when he began to move, but started towards him once more as he regarded her with wide eyes. In the fuzzy mist of the rest of the room, he was aware of another figure, possibly more; one of whom he guessed was the male voice he'd heard. His glasses missing, bound, he felt more vulnerable and naked than he ever had in his life.

Harry opened his mouth to speak as the woman approached, and promptly shut it when she drew her wand and flicked it at him with clear intent: move or speak and you won't like what happens. With a few brisk turns of it the bonds hummed against his skin and constricted. His eyes flickered from her face to the blurred room behind her.

"Secure sir," she said briskly. "Shall I begin?"

The figure in the background made an indistinct gesture, and Harry squinted. The woman nodded hesitantly and then more firmly.

"If you co-operate with us then we will have no need to exert excessive force, and you will be provided with ample sustenance for the duration of your stay," she told him formally, and Harry got the distinct impression that this was something she had said many times before. "If you choose to avoid co-operation then your stay will be…unpleasant."

Harry opened his mouth again, but once more he found himself cut off with a pointed glare as she brandished the wand.

"You will speak only to answer the questions you are asked, and any other questions you will write on the parchment provided before you are transferred to one of the stasis cells. We will reply at our discretion. Each question must be answered, or you will 'encouraged'. If we suspect that you aren't speaking the truth, then you will be subject to whatever methods we deem necessary."

Harry cringed back a little, thoroughly intimidated, and even more thoroughly confused. Things had obviously happened in-between his accident with the glass bubble and the present. Whatever it had done had been for the worst, he decided, and a pang went through him as he thought of his friends. Were they even safe yet? Had they escaped Lucius Malfoy and his cronies? A frisson of anger followed, and then guilt, because they wouldn't have been in that situation if they hadn't followed him, and if only he'd listened to Hermione _he_ wouldn't be in this situation either…

"We'll begin with your name."

The woman had a birdlike quality about her face, pointed and precise, despite the soft line of her cheeks.

He licked his lips.

"Harry James Potter," he croaked.

The woman's face came alive in front of him, as if someone had lit her from inside like a candle in a hollowed pumpkin, and was just as suddenly extinguished. She scowled briefly before her face fell back into the blank, pinched look she'd worn before.

"As I said, if we suspect that you are not speaking the truth then you will be-"

"But it's true!" Harry burst out, face twisting in confusion, because she had to believe him, just had to, everyone in the wizarding world knew his name, had seen his face plastered over the front page of the Daily Prophet this past year…

His bonds constricted sharply and he let out an involuntary grunt of pain.

"You will speak only to answer questions directed at you," she reminded him, clenching her wand hand irritably.

Harry's expression darkened and became sullen at the unfairness of her treatment, but remained silent. Surely, when they found out who he was they'd let him free…and yet he had a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach. He'd never before hoped that he'd be recognised as the Boy-Who-Lived before, but if they weren't Death Eaters, and if they were from the Light side or even the Ministry then he was sure that everything would be all right, wouldn't it? He wasn't so sure anymore.

"Once more, your name."

Harry suppressed the panicky laugh that rose in his chest and focused. This was his chance to convince them, his window of opportunity, and he had to use it before she cut him off again.

"I've already told you, it's Harry Potter, I was born on July 31st 1980, my parents were Lily and James Pot-"

She snapped her wand and the bonds tightened across his chest, expelling the air from his lungs.

"We will be forced to use more-" she paused suddenly in her speech, eyes a little unfocused, and then she nodded once more.

"Assuming that this is the case, which is by most logical assumptions impossible, we ask how you managed to infiltrate such a heavily defended building, and for what purpose."

Harry gaped at her. Impossible? Heavily defended building? His friends had taken the bloody lift down to the Department of Mysteries! There hadn't even been a security witch or wizard on watch for them – they'd been given _name tags_ stating their business (although a glance down at his robes showed that it must have become lost in the scramble). How could she imagine the Ministry to be heavily defended?

"What…" he stuttered before pulling himself together. "What do you mean, 'heavily defended'? There wasn't even a security person at the desk…"

He trailed off, feeling decidedly wrong footed as the woman exchanged a glance with the figure behind her and then turned back to him with a frown.

"We wish you to clarify," she said slowly, a hint of doubt colouring her voice.

"There was nobody there!" Harry exclaimed, anxious to make her understand. "There wasn't anyone at the security desk, and when we took the lift down to the Department of Mysteries-"

The woman's eyes widened, and then narrowed until all that were left were light slits. "The Department of Mysteries has not been in action since the conversion of the Ministry. So I ask again-"

"C-conversion?" Harry interrupted. "What conversion? The Ministry is where it always is, I passed the fountain and we went down in the lift…"

A low sound emitted from her throat, and he found himself unable to speak once more. She paused, turned her head slightly to the figure behind her and then regarded him once more.

"We will allow you the designated time of 43 seconds to explain yourself, before we resume standard questioning."

"Look," he said quickly, taking his chance to talk without retribution, "I don't know what's going on, but could you tell me if my friends survived? You must be from the Ministry, so you have to get help!" he pleaded. "There are Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries, they tried to get me there to steal a prophecy, but we got there first…" he trailed off, seeing the wary look on the woman's face, mixed with clear incomprehension. He wasn't going to be able to make her understand, he realised with a chill, he wasn't going to be able to find out anything, and who knew what he'd have to suffer through before he was able? He'd tell them everything they wanted to know, if only they asked the right questions and stopped acting as if he were speaking a different language, stopped stopping him from actually explaining... For a moment he thought that some horrible practical joke had been played, and any moment Sirius would emerge from beneath a few well placed glamours and laugh his barking laugh and tell him that April Fools had come early or there was some wizarding custom he didn't know about that involved horrible pranks and tricks…

_Sirius_, Harry thought with yearning, _Sirius, I hope you're okay._

"No," the woman said, "I wouldn't agree with-"

Harry started, thinking for a moment that she was talking to him before the dawning realisation that some modified Silencing spell was in effect came over him, and he understood she was speaking to someone else entirely. A moment later, the figure detached itself from the back of the room and walked slowly into focus.

Harry had been right in his guess that it was a man; he was of middling height with dark skin and greying hair, with the look of someone who was once rather comfortable about the middle but had become thin and lean through sleepless nights and forgetfulness. He had black eyes overshadowed by a strong brow, thick, dark circles beneath them, and he regarded Harry unblinkingly.

"That'll be enough Doris," he murmured in a low rumble and the woman to his side stiffened and stood up a little straighter. "I feel the standard techniques won't be quite adequate for this one."

"Sir, I assure you that I am able to-"

"I am sure you are, but I wish to take control of this case," he cut her off, casting a sweeping glance at her. "You look as if you could do with the sleep." A faint angry blush spread across her features and she gave him a curt nod before turning and receding swiftly into the blurred background.

The man observed him, unmoving, for several moments before flicking his wand lightly. The bonds around Harry's wrists and ankles loosened where Doris had constricted them, and he experienced the welcome tingle of blood returning to his numb appendages.

"Harry Potter," he said slowly, as if he was rolling the words over on his tongue. "Doris may be unaware of it, given her position, but we have been searching for you for a long time."

"Me?" Harry looked at him, surprised. Surely they would have found him already; it hadn't exactly been hidden that he was attending Hogwarts all these years. The Daily Prophet had run an article on what house he'd been sorted into when he'd first started there, indeed, he'd found it entirely by accident in the archives of the school library when looking up a potion maker.

"Mr. Potter," the man murmured, withdrawing a small sheaf of papers from a pocket that was obviously much larger on the inside, "was last reported in the Time Room in the Department of Mysteries, Thursday June the 17th 1996, where he encountered one of the incomplete and abandoned experimental works in an unknown and presumably fatal accident."

"I-" Harry tried, feeling his throat constrict.

"He and his friends had engaged several wanted individuals in duels," he interrupted, "namely Death Eaters, in the Hall of Prophecies. A great number of prophecies were broken in the resulting clash, and the contents lost. However, the Unspeakables were able to reassemble the fragments and detail exactly what was lost, if not recover it. Missing among them was a prophecy concerning Mr. Potter and a 'Dark Lord', among none of the apprehended individual's possession, nor noted as leaving the Department of Mysteries."

"Fatal accident?" he repeated slowly, feeling as if his mind had snagged on those two words. Ice travelled down his spine, raising hairs.

"Over the years there have been many 'Harry Potters' appearing all over the world, each claiming to have been lost in time, but each of them were proven false, one way or another." The man pinned him with a probing stare and Harry immediately turned away, reminded uneasily of Snape and their failed Occlumency sessions. "Eventually we developed a foolproof method of identification."

"The prophecy." Harry let his head tip back against the wall, information rushing into place. Finally, he closed his eyes with a painful effort. "Things aren't what…what I think they are going to be, are they?"

"Much has changed since your disappearance."

"Time travel," he murmured wonderingly. It couldn't be true. It shouldn't be possible, his mind told him. But it was. If he could travel back in time in his third year, why not forwards?

Silence greeted him, but that suited Harry just fine. The events that could have taken place as he was held in suspension while the years passed were excruciating in their potential. People he loved could have been hurt, or worse, killed. Voldemort could have finally beaten the Light into the ground.

He drew a ragged breath and pinched his eyes even more firmly shut. "What happened to my friends?" He was pleased to hear that his voice didn't waver, even if it still conveyed his feelings in the tone. Everything he was hung on a thread, waiting for the reply.

"All escaped the Department of Mysteries relatively unharmed, through the help of the notorious Order of the Phoenix. Albus Dumbledore arrived in time to engage in combat with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and the Dark Lord and his supporters fled when they discovered that the prophecy had gone missing. Miss Granger was severely wounded with a Dark hex, the after-effects of which still persist, Mr. Weasley sustained damage from his contact with the Mind Reels, Mr. Longbottom suffered a minute under the Cruciatus curse, while Miss Weasley and Miss Lovegood remained relatively unscathed."

Harry released his breath slowly. "They're still alive."

The man paused, and Harry felt his heart jump into his mouth. "Mr. Longbottom and Miss Weasley were targeted at their home, and they did not survive, along with the elder Mrs. Longbottom."

Something rose in Harry's throat; his chest deflating with a suddenness that felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. His friends, dead without question, just when he'd thought to relax. His friends, who'd followed him faithfully over the years, followed him blindly.

Dead.

The word hung in his mind, dominating everything until it was all he could think. A low whimper of a sound passed through his lips like a knife-edge before decaying into a choked sob.

"As members of the Order of the Phoenix they were prominent targets."

The words travelled to him from a great distance, as if through thick fog. They'd joined the Order. Why, he wanted to scream at them, _why_ would they join and put themselves in danger? It was the sudden blink of understanding that he would never be able to speak to them again, never be able to shout at them for doing so, never even be able to attend their _funeral_ that broke the dam, and he wept furiously.

With a sigh the man cast a glance at the boy and freed him from his bindings. Immediately he drew his legs up against his body, hands clasping his chest.

Silence reigned.

Several hours later, when the sobs had long silenced to barely perceptible breaths, a dull voice broke into the air.

"It's not going to go away, is it."

"Losing loved ones is like a scar," the man said quietly, leaning back. "The pain fades, but it will never disappear, and you will always be aware of the loss."

Harry opened his eyes, staring blindly at the grey wall in the distance. The man before him had lost someone, maybe many people, he didn't know. All he knew was that they shared a mutual sense of loss, and for a moment he felt a connection, a kinship with him. Someone else who could share his pain. He may not have been so close to Neville and Ginny as he was to Ron and Hermione, but at that space in time they had been the closest friends on earth, and the ache in his chest only repeated what he already knew.

"What's your name?" he heard himself ask, distantly, if only to break the silence that threatened to draw him back into his dark thoughts.

"Martin Croaker." There was a pause. "I worked as an Unspeakable at the Old Ministry."

"The Old Ministry." Harry reflexively curled the fingers of his hand into a fist.

"The Ministry was destroyed and rebuilt," Martin told him blandly. "It remains the centre of control for the Wizarding World, but its primary function is in defence and offence as opposed to any governmental policies. There is far too much unrest for that."

Harry roamed his eyes absently over the blurred wall. So much had happened, and now that his tears had run dry he was peculiarly devoid of emotion. There felt as if there were nothing in him, just a void and tightness in his chest that refused to fade.

He already knew what he was going to do; as soon as he could force himself to get up, as soon as he knew enough, he would track down his friends' murderers and destroy them as best he knew how. The people who hurt Neville, who was all softness around the edges with a deep, nascent sadness that seemed to reside in him; a tiny seed of sorrow. The people who hurt sweet, vibrant Ginny, who was still so bright despite the horror she'd endured in her first year, and who he had become increasingly aware of over the year; the gentle curve of her lips, the wave in her hair and the delicate shape of her eyes. The knowledge that she would never hug him, or shout at him or smile at him again crushed something in him.

"I want to know who killed them," he said finally, turning to regard Martin.

The man smiled humourlessly, shadows deepening across his face.

"I know," he said smoothly. "We will help you to the best of our ability."

Harry frowned slightly as he watched something in Martin's face change, and then he made a surreptitious move with his wand hand.

"I do not have much time, Mr. Potter, so I will be as brief as I can." He leaned forwards, a strange glitter in his eyes, the impassivity all gone. "They monitor every conversation here, and the spell I have used is only temporary. It will give us space to talk unheard, and all they will see is me asking you standard questions. The Ministry no longer has the opportunity to be as lenient as they should be, nor as kind. If they discover your true identity they will use you in the only way they know how; the situation outside has become that bad. Now, you face a choice in your path, you either remain here and hold up against the controls and personality conversions they subject you to, or you take whatever opportunity may present itself and escape from the Ministry's grasp as soon as is possible."

Harry stared at him with wide eyes, suddenly very attentive, all thoughts of revenge, of friends, of the past driven out of his mind. He had a feeling that listening might very well spell the difference between life and death.

"If you remain here you are guaranteed to be safe from the dangers outside, but you will be under a great deal of control. Rufus Scrimgeour altered the Ministry in his time, but it has come under new hands since the split, and Arnold Peasgood is not nearly as forgiving. I've seen some of the Vindicators they've produced in his time and they are as despicable as the Darkest wizards." A change seemed to have come over Croaker, and he was speaking with a jarring fervour that didn't seem to fit with his previous manner at all, leaning far forwards in his conjured chair. His eyes softened slightly as he gazed on Harry.

"You are our last hope Mr. Potter, and hope is all we have left. If you wish to take my offer then I will give you a Shiftkey as you return to your cell and drop the wards for five minutes. It is specialised to embed a spell in one of your molars that imprints the contents of the prophecy and isn't likely to be picked up by the scans. To activate it, I am afraid that you will have to remove the tooth, but only bones are less reactive than teeth, and I daresay you wouldn't want to lose a finger or a toe instead. Once outside you must find someone to remove the Ministry tags as soon as you are able. Do not use magic until they are gone, or they will find you within the hour. In the meanwhile I suggest you practice Chanting. There are always new Chants being invented, and with anyone other than the New Ministry you will be able to exercise them within a certain timeframe. They are absolutely invaluable."

He paused and looked down at his hands. "The prophecy is incredibly important," he stressed, "activate it only when you are sure that you will not let the contents leak to everyone you meet. Its significance would put you in a very dire situation were anyone to know of the contents. I have already compromised the original. Believe this Mr. Potter, the world outside the New Ministry is dangerous and fraught with conflict; do not leave under any false assumptions that you will face anything less than death out there."

Croaker's face seemed to fade back into neutrality like a ripple over water. He let out a short huff of breath.

"Mr. Potter, I pray for all our lives that you take this chance and, selfishly, for my own." His expression darkened. "'Betrayal' of this kind isn't tolerated when it is discovered, and if you refuse then it _will_ be discovered. I am sorry that I cannot help you any more than this."

Harry opened his mouth to reply but Martin had become impassive again, and flicking his wand Harry found himself bound once more.

"You will be escorted to a holding cell where you may write down any questions you may have before you are placed in stasis. Have a pleasant trip Mr. Potter." He smiled, not in any way pleasantly, and then Harry found himself gliding out of the room, two stony-faced guards falling into step either side of him with Croaker in the front.

Mind reeling from all that had happened in the short space of time, Harry had only a few short minutes to process the information he'd just received before they reached the door. By that time though, his mind was made up. No matter that the world outside seemed as deadly as one of Snape's potions at that moment, it had to be better than this endless maze of lifeless grey corridors. If he were going to learn how to fight, and deal revenge on his friends' murderers, he thought darkly, then he would need the freedom to be allowed to do it.

He was dropped in the cell, and Martin summoned a sheet of parchment, a short stick of graphite and a rubber, placing them on a desk in the middle of the room.

"You have fourteen minutes and fifty nine seconds," he said, and with a nod both he and the guards departed, although Harry could see the shadows of the guards outside the blurred glass window in the door. He shifted slightly and looked around the room. It was windowless, grey, and bare but for a desk, chair and the stationary Croaker had deposited. Frowning, he approached the desk, wondering how the man could possibly have slipped him a…what…Shiftkey had he said? without even touching him.

Tentatively, he let his fingers drift over the parchment, pencil and finally the rubber.

A sensation as of hooks fastening into his spine came over him, and he quickly released the rubber, the feeling fading with it.

_Question answered_, Harry thought emotionlessly.

Taking a deep breath and a surreptitious look around the room, he clasped it firmly and vanished.

* * *

**  
Author's Notes**

The Ministry: I wanted to change things around, and the current climate in this world wouldn't have been able to work with a Ministry like we see in Rowling's books. Just because the wizarding world is generally populated by eccentrics doesn't mean that there aren't going to be those who could mobilise a sensible force or governing body, and that's just what's happened. It seems rather 1984-esque at the moment, but I wanted to emphasise just how bad the war has become over the years by the security measures they are taking.

Chants: These will be detailed later on, but the basic premise is that given a certain amount of time, any witch or wizard could use their voice to harness simple magic, without a wand. This is why the New Ministry places a time limit on answers, dependant on important numbers in Arithmancy to prevent people using them.

Tags and Shiftkeys: More innovations. Wars force people to invent. The idea for tags came from microchipping in the Muggle world, a device often used in films and such. Shiftkeys are just another mode of transport.

The angsting - Harry has just found out his friends have been killed. He _isn't_ going to sit around moping for them and slitting his wrists for the rest of the story, but he's suitably unhappy about that fact in this chapter. He'll end up dwelling more on revenge as the story goes on.

For this story I wanted to do something a little different, and actually invest some time in plot and planning rather than just making things happen as I write, which is what ended up happening a lot with 'In The Company of Secrets'. I also tried to make the writing style a little less bland and tedious than 'The Company'. With this story I have an overriding plot roughly planned, and a more detailed one specific to this story, which should make it more organised. In total this story is in three different arcs, although whether I'll end up completing all of them remains to be seen.

Updates will be slower than 'In The Company', but there will be substantially more to them when they come. Future chapters should be levelling around 7k to 9k words per entry – this is shorter as it is simply an introduction/prologue.

For reference, in this story I have used several sites. To access them, remove the spaces from the links:

Dictionary . com

Wikipedia . com

Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid (http // archives . nd . edu / latgramm . htm)

Hp-Lexicon . org

Till then,

Dream Red


	2. Freedom

**Chapter Two: Freedom**

Harry shifted the muscles in his shoulders, feeling as if a weight had been lifted from him. He could breathe easier, clearer, and the air had never seemed as fresh. Certainly, after several months of adjustment he was more tense and edgy than he had ever been before, but with the last of the deeply embedded tracking spells that the New Ministry had placed on him finally removed, he could almost smell freedom like a fragrance on the breeze.

Strolling leisurely along the Muggle street, he contemplated just how well the New Ministry had done their job. The organisation, from what he had discovered and the little he had seen first hand, was completely airtight. They left no gaps in their systems, and mistakes were fixed and skills honed at every possible opportunity. He was under no delusions that were he to be caught once more there would be no second chance at escape. They would have introduced far more stringent precautions before members of separate departments were allowed to disable the Shiftkey wards, and upped security to incomprehensible levels when doing so.

The tags he had been fitted with on arrival been well crafted, innovative and unique to him. With Voldemort's second rise spellwork had evolved at a furious rate to keep up with each opposing side's inventions, and the New Ministry tags were a stroke of pure genius in that respect. Each used a generic yet amorphous spell web that adjusted to its own particular form as it settled on the individual, attuning closely to their magic, personality and physical shape until they were knit so closely as to be almost indistinguishable from the target. The real skill though, was their parasitic qualities. Each time the caster fired a spell they were activated and siphoned off a certain quantity of that magic, returning a pinpoint signal to the New Ministry.

Harry had been lucky enough to fall under the category of High Security prisoner, and had been affixed with not one, but seven tags, each layered over the other, boosted by the powerful number and working at different levels. There had been three low level tags that emitted very general signals running off the faint air of magic that existed around him naturally, one middle level tag that responded to minor spells, and three deeply embedded tags that reacted to powerful magical boosts and returned his precise location to the Hunters at the New Ministry.

Tags were difficult to remove to begin with, although since their discovery by the general public business in their removal had budded and flourished, but to be rid of the higher levels one required a certain degree of persuasiveness and charisma, well greased with impressive funds.

This was one of the reasons why Harry had spent several months high and dry without magic; existing as well he could and committing to memory the scraps of information he received from the Wizarding world. He stayed out of the way as best he knew how – by hiding in the Muggle world.

The Shiftkey had dropped him somewhere on the outskirts of a far larger London than he remembered near one of the smaller motorways before disintegrating in his hand. He'd clenched his palm around the fragments, sweat mixing with ash, and spent the better part of an hour panicking about what he should do. Still torn up by the shock of his new circumstances and his friends' deaths, he hadn't been a position to do much constructive thinking.

_But I've changed now_, he mused. _I'm stronger, better_. Harry let out a short bark of laughter that was stifled in the empty street. In his mind, he was neither stronger nor better than when he woke up in that featureless room bound to the wall in the New Ministry. The key was that he had acclimatised to his situation and had used subtlety for something other than pranks and sneaking for the first time in years. That wasn't to say that he hadn't made mistakes, and he smiled grimly at the memories, but he'd survived everything the world had thrown at him so far.

Harry had always been good at taking risks.

Pushing himself up from the scrubs and grasses that had managed to withstand the pollution beside the motorway, he had walked hesitantly towards the edge of the road and spent the next five hours trying to hitch a ride. The thing about hitchhiking, he realised, was that the movies always depicted friendly American drivers who were more than happy to help an unknown and inconvenienced individual. The real British public didn't seem to share the same carefree and trusting attitude. When a car had finally pulled over, he'd almost wept with relief. He hadn't been looking forward to the prospect of walking along the side of the road all the way to central London. An hour and forty minutes later he had been dropped off in Richmond with a gruff goodbye and a suspicious look.

Even now, after all this time, Harry was still unsure as to why he had chosen to stay in London. On the one hand, it was the heart of everything that was currently happening in Britain, but on the other hand, there were more risks, danger and fears than he could possibly count. Voldemort was still at large. The Death Eaters had to be worse than ever. The political climate in Muggle Britain was in turmoil, and from what he had managed to scrape up here and there, the Wizarding world no longer even had a managing body, although the New Ministry posed a significant force.

Not wishing to end up any closer to the New Ministry than was absolutely necessary, Harry had set about finding somewhere he could sleep that was away from the central hub of the city, and a way to earn enough money to eat. He had been sensible enough not to give into the temptation to go crawling back to the Dursleys, no matter how much he had wished at that moment for a warm bed and his relatives' familiar disgusted expressions. Too much would have changed. Instead, he had found a photo booth and curled up to sleep.

Harry shivered a little, unsettled by the memory of that first miserable night in this new world.

Apparently finding a job wasn't as easy as it had been when he was at school and Dudley was searching for summer work. You needed qualifications and there were applications to fill out; difficult for someone without even a place of residence or a phone number. After a day of trawling around London in search of anything that might earn a little cash, he was on the point of folding and making a break for Gringotts.

But what if Gringotts no longer existed?

With all his funds tied up in the Wizarding world, and with even the Muggle news so fraught with terrorism, convicts and freak accidents, Harry had relented to spending another night without a bed, leaning against the cold glass of a telephone booth and reciting the date to himself – June 19th, 2010. Fourteen years of absence, longer than Sirius' imprisonment, longer than Voldemort's half-life. Only two years less than his own lifetime. The future had seemed so desperately immense and hopeless.

A month later, he had a job in a grotty little pub in Croydon that paid in cash, and a bare room to sleep in for £35 a month. He'd bought himself a cheap sleeping bag, could afford to eat until he was full, and had a tentative relationship building with a timid girl who worked alongside him by the name of Nicola. For his birthday, she took him to Brick Lane market to buy a cheap mobile phone, by which time Harry learnt enough about the alien objects to not jump each time the loud polyphonic ring-tones blared through the pub.

He'd told her and his employers he was an amnesiac by way of explanation of his strange behaviour, which in a sense was quite true.

Daily readings of the newspapers, browsing through past archives, careful observation of the television, and Nicola's retelling of the past decade allowed him to piece together a sketchy and fragile recounting of what had occurred in his absence.

It wasn't pleasant.

He estimated that the War had begun in earnest about six months after his disappearance, and Voldemort had set into action plans that had taken thirteen years to map out and a year to lay the foundations for. A past issue of a newspaper showed dark, strangely still pictures of hollowed, haunted faces. Below were written the names Bellatrix Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov, Jugson, Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange, Augustus Rookwood, Lucius Malfoy…The second break-out of Azkaban had freed those caught in the Department of Mysteries and the Muggle papers had declared them and the others part of a dangerous terrorist group. Harry knew better. There followed fires and accidents, bridges breaking, a thick fog spreading through the countryside, people turning up vacant eyed and insane. The Dementors had joined Voldemort.

A photograph printed onto a newspaper and shown on every television around the country, now almost an urban legend among Britain's public, showed the Dark Mark, jaws gaping, snake writhing and glowing with an unearthly black light above the ruins of the Houses of Parliament. From then on, chaos reigned, masses of people fled the country, and control was split between the elected government and the army. Mysteriously, other Muggle political leaders remained neutral and unhelpful, and England remained war-torn and fraught. Harry had suspicions on their lack of action, but no solid evidence to prove that they had been influenced by magic.

And yet, despite the chaos, people had remained, living out their lives, going to their pubs and drinking a pint, watching football matches and going to work. Harry saw them each evening, displaying remarkable optimism for a nation under such unknown threat.

Harry had not forgotten Croaker's warnings about the Ministry tags, but he had been biding his time before his first foray into the unknown, displaying a sense of self-preservation he hadn't previously been aware of. The first thing he'd done upon receiving his pay was to head to the nearest store that sold cosmetics and spend several hours bleaching and re-dying his hair. That done, he applied a layer of skin-coloured paste he'd snatched from the shelves to his scar, and allowed his now mousy brown mop of hair to fall back over his forehead. It had taken Nicola's surprised laughter at the decidedly noticeable smudge of dark tan on his head for him to take the time to accompany her back to the store and spend a little more time picking out his disguise. Nicola had been fobbed off with an only half fake fit of paranoia, presumably an after-effect of his amnesia.

Harry remembered his first foray into the Wizarding world fondly. It had been both terrifying and exhilarating. He'd taken a weekend to camp out a café opposite the Leaky Cauldron, watching people who were dressed conspicuously as witches and wizards coming and going, noting down in a grubby notebook the numbers who seemed harmless and the numbers that seemed dangerous, all the while trying to ignore the running commentary through his brain that told him he was becoming more paranoid than Mad-eye Moody. When he'd tallied it up at the end of the weekend, there had been more than enough proof for him that he could visit in relative safety.

Of course, he tried very hard not to think that Dark wizards would probably be sneakier and less prone to entering through the Leaky Cauldron. Not for the first time he wished he'd paid a little more attention to his surroundings when he had the chance to do so safely and tried to find out if there were other ways to enter the Alley.

He'd stalled, pocketed his notepad, considered coming back the following weekend and then bravely crossed the road, pushing open the door.

He realised belatedly that for all his caution he hadn't even thought so much of clothing himself in something resembling a robe, and from the sudden silence and myriad of stares, he understood that that was quite a mistake to make.

Cowed by the barely veiled hostility on many faces, he unconsciously hunched up and scuttled awkwardly to the bar where a hard-faced stranger was working. Harry didn't ask what had happened to Tom.

"Mudblood, are yeh?" the man grunted.

Harry's eyes widened and then narrowed. He took a moment to bite back the insults that came to mind and bit out a brief reply.

"Blending in."

The man laughed and set the glass he was cleaning on the rough wooden surface. "Oh yeah? Well you sure as hell ain't blending in here, are yeh?"

Harry scowled and turned away, heading towards the door that led to the back yard and Diagon Alley.

"Oi!" the barman shouted indignantly, moving round the counter to intercept him. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I-" Harry began, before realising how hopelessly out of his depth he was. "I wanted to get to Diagon Alley."

The barman looked at him as if he were mad. "Crazy," he muttered, heading back towards his previous position. "You stay away from there boy," he spat venomously, " and don't you dare mention that name again."

"I shouldn't worry about him Henry," a velvety voice said from one of the tables, and Harry span to search the crowds for the source. "He's got amnesia."

He was momentarily distracted from his search by the comment, and then redoubled his efforts to fix a face to the voice. He was saved the effort when a graceful figure stood from the crowds and made its way towards the bar where they stood.

"That right, eh?" Henry guffawed, although he still looked a little sour. "And what'll it be for you sir?"

Harry could see immediately that the person was male, and perfectly at home in his surroundings. He oozed power and self-assurance in every way possible, from his stance to his walk to the way he dressed, and Harry battled both fear and intrigue when he looked at him. The man obviously had power and was displaying an interest in him, but that could spell both good and bad.

"The Dragon's Tongue and…a Butterbeer." He spared a glance at Harry and then beckoned him over to a table, ignoring the poorly hidden interest of the other customers. Harry had followed reluctantly, only too aware of his ignorance concerning what could be a potential enemy.

His dubious rescuer's face was pale and elegant, black hair reaching his shoulders. His clothes bespoke quiet wealth, far removed from the opulence that the younger Malfoy indulged in, and underneath his cloak he wore a simple, if outdated waistcoat and shirt. Harry didn't absorb much of this at the time, but over the following months he had replayed the situation in his mind so many times that these details seemed to stand out in stark contrast to the surroundings.

What he did notice at the time were two things. The first, was that on his right hand, middle finger, he wore a silver ring shaped like a skull. The second was that his eyes were a pale slate-grey that seemed both dull and alive with movement at the same time. The picture he made as he raised his drink to his mouth, purple flames licking the surface and reflecting off his eyeballs in a way that made them glisten was not at all trustworthy.

Harry's Butterbeer remained untouched.

"I was lucky to catch you here." The man spoke conversationally, with a softness to his voice that made Harry wonder if he had ever had to raise it in his life. It carried the same power to draw attention as Snape and or Dumbledore's.

"You were, were you?"

"Yes." The answer was succinct: Harry narrowed his mouth to a pinched line. "It may interest you to know that Henry's seventeen year old daughter was killed in the battle of Diagon Alley."

Ignoring Harry's sharp inhalation, he took another sip of his drink.

"The world has changed a lot in the past decade." The man placed his drink back down on the stained wood of the table and withdrew a small leather book from the inside pocket of his cloak. Opening it, he flicked through several pages before finding the one he was looking for and tearing it out in one smooth motion. Folding it in half, he pushed it across the table.

Harry made no move to touch it until those oddly pale hands withdrew to the opposite side of the table again. Even then, he didn't open it, but fixed the stranger with a distinctly mistrustful look.

"I made a visit to the New Ministry recently." The man threaded his fingers together, but didn't break eye contact with him, direct and challenging. "I spoke to a man named Martin Croaker, who told me some very interesting things."

Less than a minute later, Harry braced himself against a brick wall several blocks away, wiping the nervous sweat from his forehead and trying to catch his breath. He could have been anyone, but in Harry's eyes the mere mention of Martin Croaker said that he was part of the New Ministry. He didn't want to end up back there. A glance around the corner showed no sign of pursuit but he hailed the nearest taxi as soon as was possible, despite the price he would have to pay out of his meagre funds. Calmed by the enclosed space and gentle hum of the engine, Harry released his clenched palm from around the paper and unravelled the crumpled contents. Inside were written four words:

'_Spitalfields, The Tricky Spell_'

* * *

From then on life had been easy, comparatively. Someone else had solved one of the most stressful problem for him. The initial threat of fumbling his way around to access the Wizarding world had caused many sleepless nights, and with that problem gone, he had found himself able to relax a little.

Of course, the big answer only gave rise to many smaller questions. Such as the problem that he didn't have a wand, or a clue of whether the wizarding world kept old records of newspapers, or whether the Daily Prophet was even running anymore.

Spitalfields had been delightfully similar to his memories of it as a child. Stores had been colonised and converted from the unique little shops they had been, and the many stalls in the market had become more generalised, but hidden in between the gaps were the many peculiar odds and ends he had loved on that first outing with the Dursleys in autumn, when they'd stumbled on the market quite by accident and lost Dudley for one glorious half hour. Harry had breathed in the scents and reminisced before setting out on his search. Sure enough, hidden among the other shops lining the market was a rather tacky looking store named 'The Tricky Spell'.

Pushing aside the plastic bead curtain in the door, Harry had entered a tiny cramped room crammed to the brim with various trinkets, gems, and incense so strong that he was reminded powerfully of Trelawney's 'mystic' classroom. Various uncomfortable looking witches and wizards were standing single file in the limited floor space, trying very hard not to knock anything off the shelves whilst pressed up against their neighbours like sardines in a tin. An enthusiastic looking witch stood behind the counter, gently charring the tips of her hair with her wand. Every now and again she would lick a finger, press it to the desk and lift a little plastic jewel to the burnt strands where it would stick for a second before falling back to the surface with a dull clatter.

"-why we put up with this service!"

"Because we need newts eyes dear," a weary voice replied from the front, the tail end of the sentence drowned out by a metallic clang that made Harry and the lady in front of him jump in surprise. He barely managed to keep from being knocked backward by her, and grimaced as the trunk snapped off a miniature ceramic elephant and fell with a loud clatter into a standing vase below. A nervous glance at the witch at the counter showed that she hadn't so much as blinked.

The vase proved to be quite bottomless as he fumbled around inside it as discreetly as he could, whilst keeping an eye out for the sales witch, but when another metal rattle made him smack his head into the shelf above, he abandoned his efforts and instead stood on tiptoe to see what was making the noise.

A small squeaky voice shouted "Ground floor!" and there were a resounding number of groans as a stream of people poured from what Harry now realised was a lift, edging awkwardly by those waiting. When the last had finally bustled past him, the customers began to enter in single file. The voice shouted "Going up!" just as Harry squeezed through the closing doors into a far more spacious lift than first impressions would imply. He was just trying to surreptitiously peer past a red-faced, portly wizard for the source of the voice when the doors opened once more and he found himself forcefully expelled from the lift by the crowds of wizarding shoppers.

Turning, he saw perhaps the most welcoming sight since his arrival in the New Ministry. Ahead of him stretched a steep winding path, light falling from above and catching in the mist above the crooked, colourful houses. It was no Diagon Alley, but to Harry it was like the first spell cast after a summer without magic. Witches and wizards darted here and there, their quick furtive movements and haunted eyes quite lost on him as he drank in his surroundings. When he was finally snapped out of his daze by the elbow of a particularly hurried individual, he felt a large, goofy smile spread across his face before he could get his facial muscles under control.

Recalling that, Harry winced at what a fool he must have looked. _Like a Muggleborn seeing magic performed for the first time._

He'd wandered along the streets in a dream, trying to keep to the sidelines but unable to contain his wide-eyed stares. Things were as if they'd never changed. Indeed, there were even more shops and items on sale in this street than there had been in Diagon Alley! And then, to top it all off, a glance upwards as the street branched into two showed a heavily weathered copper plaque that read:

'_Alchemic Alley'_

He'd broken his gaze with a small smile and turned down the right hand fork, head turning as fast as he could to take everything in whilst keeping an eye out for Gringotts bank. If this was where the new wizarding centre in London was, then they were sure to have relocated here. As it was, he was assaulted from all sides by colourful robes with strange embroidery, shops selling clocks, measuring equipment, potions supplies, all manner of owls, venomous snakes, ritual materials, varieties of animal blood, sweets and candy, tricks and pranks, _music_.

Harry was jarred out of his daydream by the tune that floated over the heads of the crowds, so thick as to be almost visible, yes, if he looked upwards he could almost see shapes forming in the air…but that wasn't possible. A man yelled, and several women screamed, and the tune took on a sinister overtone as people pushed against him to flee in the other direction. Many pressed into shops or tighter into the crowds until Harry was standing almost alone in the centre of the cobbled street.

"Come here you stupid boy!" A hand grasped the back of his jumped and tugged him into a shop specialising in umbrellas. He glanced at a tiny wrinkled lady who mouthed angrily at him to stay quiet before returning his attention to the street.

His first sight of the Vindicators had not been a reassuring one. The marching band tune carried over them still, lulling and swelling like thick bubbles breaking under pressure and then receding again. Harry remembered the imposing figures with an unpleasant nausea in his gut; the rows of heavily robed red men and women, hoods pulled down and faces hard. Their robes were a different style to those that he was used to, more like cloaks, open at the front to display pressed clothes and a mind-boggling range of weapons and tools. The woman beside Harry shrank back with a small whimper as they passed.

When they were finally gone, Harry and several others around him let out a quiet sigh of relief. The atmosphere among the crowd told him just how much menace those soldiers posed.

"Who were they?" he asked in a hushed whisper to the woman who'd pulled him back. She looked for a moment as if she were going to answer him before her expression sharpened.

"You ought to be more careful young man!" She huffed and pushed her way further into the shop, leaving him to peer after the robed officers.

No one seemed willing to leave the perceived safety of the stores, but eventually shoppers trickled back onto the streets, business continuing in a subdued and hasty fashion. Everyone seemed anxious to leave the area as quickly as possible, and Harry passed a Floo and Apparition portal jammed full with queues of people pressing forwards.

He had continued walking for some time, more wary than he had been before. Something about the red-robed figures had shaken him – perhaps the panic they had caused, or some indistinct feature in their expressions – but whether it was that or the atmosphere they had left in their wake, he had been consumed with a need to conduct his business as quickly as possible and make his way back. He would be able to explore more thoroughly another time.

Gringotts bank stood tall and proud at the end of the street, where it curved off left, winding up the hill. Harry hadn't paused to question the presence of so much space or the sudden incline, because after all, what was magic for if not this? The white building was smaller than he remembered, although the same inscription read from the inside wall, and people were darting in and out of the columns that lined the entrance. It took little time to exchange Muggle currency for galleons, and Harry had felt comforted by the weight of the familiar coins in his pockets.

From then on, Harry had played the game of subtlety as best he could. He had been almost positive that removing New Ministry tags was illegal, but enough searching eventually brought him his answer, and like most of the good things that happened to him, it happened by chance. Overhearing a conversation, just like in Kings Cross when he had been searching for Platform 9 ¾, had led him to one person, and then another, and gradually he had cleansed himself of the tags month after month with his carefully saved funds.

And, on the recommendation of the first seller he met, he didn't so much as touch a wand for that time.

* * *

The street Harry walked along was narrow and deserted, faint light beginning to swell over the horizon as he made his way home from his shift at the pub. He was more than aware that he should probably be paid more for his work, but it gave him enough to live on, and he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if it wasn't so much of a gift as he would have hoped. He worked from Monday to Saturday, from eight in the evening to four in the morning, and sometimes hung around longer if the owner was feeling kind enough to let him have a packet of crisps or a sandwich for free.

Harry had very quickly learnt to accept what he got without complaint.

Tonight though, he would only be heading home for a catnap before heading out again. He'd begged off an hour early from work and met with his 'friend' who removed the New Ministry tags for a hefty price, and when daylight started piercing through the bare panes of glass in his tiny room to tell him that it was a more respectable time of day, he would be up and out again, making his way to Spitalfields and Alchemic Alley. Harry had never had trouble waking up early, a product of being woken at that time for the better part of his life to cook breakfast for his relatives and get a start on his chores, and the transition had been easy. He slept lightly and fitfully at best.

He quietly let himself into the house and padded past his landlord, who was asleep on the sofa in front of the glazed surface of the television, blaring out an advert for cereal. His room was a small one at the top of the house, three floors above the bathroom. Dave had inherited the house through his grandfather, and done what any sensible layabout would do with a hopelessly run-down building: rent it out at attractively low prices and have his income arrive in a wad of notes each month. He neither invaded Harry's life nor searched his room to find where he stashed his money, he merely waved him over once a month and demanded his pay.

Harry's worldly possessions currently included a sleeping bag, two pairs of trousers, a pair of pyjama bottoms, two T-shirts, a few pairs of underwear, a beaten jacket, a penknife, a tiny handheld mirror, a pair of worn and muddy trainers, a notepad and biro, and a mobile phone. In his room he kept a toothbrush and paste, after someone had left his last mangled on the bathroom floor after Merlin knew what. He'd prised up a floorboard with a borrowed screwdriver and kept his money under it. A worn and water stained mattress had been in the room when he'd arrived, and he made sure one corner of it was always hiding the floorboard at all times. It was the best he would be able to do until he had a wand.

A wand. _That_ thought sent a thrill through him.

The loss of his wand to the past still haunted him, and although it was quite likely that it had been salvaged from the Department of Mysteries, he had no way of getting it as yet. Even as he sat slumped on the edge of his bed, pulling his shoes off and carelessly tossing them to the floor, he could see Hermione's distorted face behind the glass bubble, his wand lying just outside, just out of reach. If only he could find her now, tell her that he was back, he was the real Harry Potter. He hadn't dared speak too much to any one person, but he'd had enough conversations to know that numerous fakes of him had appeared and disappeared just as quickly. Rumour had it that the New Ministry kept a level just for copies of him, which had made him laugh.

Since his first horrific night in this future world, Harry had felt the loss of his friends, both alive and dead, as keenly as a knife through his chest. Time had dulled it, just as Martin had told him it would, but even if it was less sharp it didn't make it less painful. Necessity had simply forced him to focus on other things. As he lay on the battered mattress, staring up at the ceiling and its familiar water marks, he rolled over the same thoughts that he had been thinking for the past four months.

Ginny and Neville were dead.

It sang though his mind with a brand of irrevocable emptiness and grief that he welcomed. His greatest fear was that he would stop feeling this, stop remembering them, to forget. And yet, at the same moment nothing could be worse than their absence. He had come to terms with the unchangeable nature of it.

Ron and Hermione thought him dead.

That was changeable, though it made his stomach muscles clench up with nerves each time he thought about how he might face them. It would come eventually; he had resigned himself to that. He would deal with it when it came.

Other than Luna, he couldn't be certain that anyone else he knew and loved was alive. He wished, not for the first time, that he had asked Croaker more, had had the guts to bring up Sirius without fear of putting him in danger.

As soon as he could do so without fear of drawing attention to himself, he would read back through whatever news archives he could find and discover the names of those that had died. Though he cringed at the thought that yet more of the people he knew could be among the listed deceased, he couldn't live with himself if he had the opportunity to know and had turned it away. Nothing could be outrun forever, and eventually he would learn what he tried so very hard not to. He could then actively seek what remained of his companions out and attempt to cope with whatever loses presented themselves. There were other things in the news archives too, he knew. He'd finally be able to get a proper handle on the political climate in the wizarding world.

Voldemort was still at large.

But to what extent, he did not know. He would discover and develop a plan of action when he had successfully discovered the situation. Again, he would face it as it came.

He needed to learn.

He had no support this time; no one to lean on when the going got tough or the battles became too hard. All he had was himself, and he could admit that a boy with only fifth year spells had nothing to his credit except a track record of remarkably good luck and dubious fame. He had no 'adult' experience to draw from – he'd never had to wheedle things from people or bribe them, he'd never had to appear confident enough to win someone's respect, or beat them into the ground in a battle. He'd only escaped Voldemort because the man was playing with him; he'd only escaped his Death Eaters because they wanted the Prophecy. In short, he either needed to drastically improve his life experience and knowledge of magic, or he would have to find someone whom he trusted to teach him, and since he wasn't going to win any awards for charisma at the moment, the former seemed his only option. When he got his wand, he'd be able to begin.

He was on a quest for revenge.

Various images of bloody torture and the Cruciatus curse flashed through his mind with a pleasurable tingle. He wanted revenge almost as much as he felt the pain of his friends' deaths in his chest each time he saw a girl with red hair or a boy with that same air of anxiety. It made the pain bearable to him, mixed with it so thoroughly that he couldn't think of Ginny or Neville without thinking of how sweet their killers' screams would be to his ears. The pain he imagined them receiving would be a balm on his wounds, more than enough payment for his loss. Would it be Lucius Malfoy, or Bellatrix Lestrange? He thought that she would be the type to return to finish the job, and his blood boiled whenever he thought of her mocking baby voice back in the Department of Mysteries. Yes, he would have no trouble at all in killing her. But…perhaps it was someone else? Not Voldemort himself – he would send his minions rather than engage in a personal battle, but Harry would not let himself forget that the man was responsible…

He drifted into a half dream, only to be woken by a noise, before falling back into a soft stream of incomprehensible images and shapes, colours and sounds.

* * *

Alchemic Alley was fresh and undisturbed as a beach after high tide in the early morning light. The world was Harry's oyster. He was free, disguised now that he had reluctantly replaced his glasses with contacts and covered up that distinguishing scar. His glasses had been confiscated by the New Ministry along with various other possessions, and he'd finally acknowledged that he wouldn't be able to get another pair. Along with the dark hair and the scar they were the third part of the symbol that had been Harry Potter; they had been iconic even in his time. Not for the first time, he wished that he were old enough to grow a beard or some sort of facial hair that might further disguise him, but alas, his chin remained pale and hairless as a new-born bird.

He had explored the Alley enough over the past months to understand that its layout comprised of a road that ran in a slanted triangle, with shops lining the centre and the edge. The hill came to a peak at its furthest corner, away from the Spitalfields entrance, and the two roads sloped down from it to a flat – the road he had taken during his first visit and unpleasant encounter with the Vindicators. Gringotts stood at the end of that route, on the far corner, acting as the odd one out of a store hierarchy. The wealthier the store, and thusly the higher the prices, the further it was up the hill, with the 'slums' below. The shops along the flat road tended to be cramped and small, in great numbers. As far as he had been able to discover, every six months there was a detailed survey of the stores all along Alchemic Alley, and the three at the bottom of the rung were derailed and replaced with others, whilst there occurred a multitude of shifts within the community, some moving houses, others assimilating smaller stores nearby.

All this served to give a frenzied attitude to the sales, and even at the relatively early hour at which he was visiting he was bombarded with cries and beckoned over to try some of the products, to look at them, to buy them. Gradually, Harry had become used to this, and now he passed by with little notice. Besides, he had other reasons for being here than casual browsing.

From the deeply depressed shop owner he'd spoken to during his last visit, Harry had learnt a great deal, and yet still understood very little of the mechanics of Alchemic Alley. The man had just been shunted off of his land to make way for another prospective business, and he and his family had been made homeless.

"That's…" he had paused and hiccuped in a way that was half sob, "that's the risk you take, you see. You could make it big, or you and your family…your family – homeless." He'd banged his palm onto the table. "Just like that."

He'd slurred out a very confusing explanation of the way the competition worked within the different sections, or classes.

"Each shop is classed under a big…like…family." He'd paused, staring dazedly off into the distance. "Potions ingredients go under potions…rituals under…um, rituals. Every class has it's own hi-hier…um…race, for who's the highest, and every level has its own classes. Only," he'd hiccuped, "the top levels only have one shop in each class."

The conversation had made some things clear to Harry, and others even more indistinct, but his eyes had been opened to the competition within Alchemic Alley itself. He noticed as he progressed up the hill how the shops evened out in number and size, and how each type narrowed down to just one, exactly as the man had told him they did. The shops turned into stores, and the stores increased in size and quality, up until a certain point. The highest level, as he judged it, sold things that were one of a kind, and without competition they retained their place uncontested.

Such as shops that sold wands.

* * *


	3. Life Experience

**Chapter Three: Life Experience**

Ollivander's wand store was cool and empty, like the inside of a cave after sharp sunlight. It was as if the rest of the world had been turned down in volume, and upon entering Harry felt peculiarly peaceful, despite his worries. This would be the turning point in his life – if Ollivander recognised him (and he was sure he would), then Harry would either succeed or be turned in by the old man.

He sincerely hoped that it would be the former.

With butterflies in his stomach, he approached the desk to drop his hand onto the bell. A muffled ringing sounded at the back of the shop, hidden behind row upon row of narrow shelves. Even with the greater room in the shop, it seemed that Ollivander made his storage space as impenetrable as possible. In the wake of the bell the silence seemed to stretch even further, and then… a flicker in the corner of his eye made him start like a skittish horse.

Ollivander looked almost the same as when Harry had bought his first wand. His eyes were milky, luminescent and inquiring, willowy frame poised at the border of the shelves and the main store. Slowly he began to smile.

"I hadn't thought to see you for some time yet Mr. Potter."

He had a voice like dust, as old as the moon. Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

"In fact," he continued, moving forwards to rest his thin palms on the counter, "I hadn't expected to see you for another week or so, but it seems that the impatience of youth has won out again."

Harry eyed him warily, trying desperately to think of an appropriate response.

Ollivander lowered his head to fix him with an unblinking stare. "I imagine that you will be wanting another wand."

"Yes," Harry murmured, eyes flickering everywhere but those unnerving silvery orbs. He had forgotten quite how spooky the wand-maker could be.

"Then of course, we shall set about without delay," he declared. "I think it safe to say that you be no easier a match than our last encounter, hmm?"

Harry chuckled nervously as the man faded into the back of the shop, occasionally causing a faint rattle of wooden case against wooden case as he ran a finger down the labels. Waiting, Harry fiddled with his hands, tracing a fingernail along the grain of the counter, drawing out idle patterns. He tried as best he could not to think of all the possibilities open to him once he acquired a wand. _False hopes_, he murmured inwardly, _don't let yourself get caught in false hopes._

"Best to begin with the similarities, I find." Harry started as a box was laid before him; Ollivander moved completely silently. "Holly and unicorn tail, 11 inches."

A light prickle ran up his arm as he touched the wood, but before he could even begin to grasp it Ollivander had replaced it with another.

"12 inches, willow and phoenix feather."

The brush of fingers against it elicited nothing at all.

Soon they fell into the familiar pattern. From seven inches to fourteen, holly, ash, redwood, beech, oak, nundu skin, mermaid scale, powdered basilisk tooth, werewolf hair, vampire blood, dragon heartstring, occamy feather, Veela hair. Ollivander smiled to himself all the way, snatching another wand out of Harry's grasp. Just like his last visit, the man seemed to come alive as it became harder and harder to find him a wand. Those that he had tried stacked up on the counter beside him, and he shuffled back and forth between the shelves, returning with more and more boxes resting haphazardly in his arms.

"It seems that you retain your title of hardest customer, Mr. Potter, ever so tricky." He smiled eerily. "Perhaps we might even outdo the record this time, hmm?"

Harry frowned at him over the pile of boxes before voicing the question that had been plaguing him since he awoke in this future world.

"What happened to my last wand?"

A little of the wand-maker's enthusiasm seemed to fade. "A perfect match, quite perfect," he murmured, busy hands pausing above the newest box. "Yes, it is not often that you see brother wands, not in use by two wizards at the same time." He levelled Harry with a milky stare. "It disappeared shortly after you did, and neither your companions, nor the Ministry, nor the Dark Lord himself have been able to find it."

Harry tried very hard not to show his disappointment. Its certified loss added to the dull ache in his heart.

"Oh."

"'Oh' indeed, Mr. Potter," the elderly man repeated, resuming ordering the cases. "It was quite a blow to the community, not to mention the individuals." His eyes flicked up to observe Harry briefly. "It was a wand for great deeds. Great, and terrible."

Hearing those words spoken again, Harry flinched back, just a little.

"But," Ollivander smiled faintly, "I have already told you that. I stand by what I said." Before Harry could reply he had cast open a box and slid it across the counter. "Try it."

Hesitantly, Harry reached forwards, grasping the wand fully and feeling a familiar tingle play across his skin.

It was snatched out of his hand before he could even so much as 'swish and flick'.

"Hey!" Harry's fist closed on empty air as Ollivander withdrew with surprising speed. "That one felt right!"

The old wand-maker closed the lid of the box with a snap of finality. "But was it truly right for you? No. The wand chooses the wizard, and that wand, while most certainly compatible, was not for you."

"But it felt right…"

Ollivander paused, hand wavering over the stack of boxes, flicking his fingers occasionally as if fending off the inevitably moment when he would have to lay it down on only one. Harry watched, mesmerised, and a moment later the man was opening another box and removing the wand.

"This one, perhaps," he said thoughtfully, before replacing it once more, leaving Harry's outstretched hand to hang in the empty air. "No, no, I am quite sure-" he paused, "most curious indeed…we are close, I feel."

He slid the wooden case back into the pile and just as swiftly removed another, passing it unopened into Harry's hands. Dubiously, Harry took it with damp palms. This could be what he was waiting for, all this time; this could be his ticket to revenge, to great deeds…terrible deeds. Inside lay a medium length wand, a pale grey. A soft brush fell over his hands, as if from the touch of a breeze, and the hairs along the back of his neck rose in a shiver. Reverently, tense with anticipation, he lifted it from its case.

The effect was instantaneous.

As with the phoenix feather wand, a lulling rush of power flowed over him, pure, cold, natural. It buoyed him up, lifting a pressure from his form, until he felt as light as a feather, surrounded by...nothing. For a the briefest moment he resided in a place filled with endless snow, white from horizon to horizon, until he felt that he had melted into it, become part of nothing more than a harsh, endless plain, part of the freezing chill and icy presence, barren and inhospitable, the feeling lingering even as the vision faded.

"That's the one." Harry exhaled in a rush, staring dazedly down at the wand, still caught up in the vision. Had something like that happened with his first wand? He was sure it hadn't, he would have remembered it. He eyed the wand resting innocently in his hands with a great deal of wariness.

Ollivander regarded him for a long moment.

"9 inches, mountain hemlock with the ground bone and feathers of a Ghost Ptarmigan," he said finally.

Harry blinked up at him. "A what?" he asked, disconcerted.

"A Ghost Ptarmigan Mr. Potter, is a relative of the non-magical birds, and a most illusive creature dwelling almost exclusively in the arctic tundra and the glacial ice sheets themselves. The bird that these materials came from was a gift from a Russian wand-maker on my travels."

A sudden twinge surfaced in Harry's stomach, and he was reminded dreadfully of Hedwig. He wondered what had happened to his owl. Nodding swiftly, he fumbled in his pockets for his moneybag, anxious to leave and take a breath of fresh air to clear his head.

"Consider it paid," Ollivander interrupted with a strange look, "from one to another."

"I couldn't-" Harry began, but was cut off as the mysterious man raised his hand.

"You already have." He watched him with those strange glassy eyes before nodding to himself. "Good luck, Mr. Potter, and good day."

* * *

Harry sat in the Mermaid's Tale, sipping a Butterbeer and absently twirling his wand in one hand. The pub was as dingy as the Leaky Cauldron had been, but in remarkably better wear. He supposed that over the years the Leaky Cauldron must have seen a fair share of damage, and there were only so many times you could fix and clean things before the spells ceased to be so effective. He didn't know how long the Mermaid's Tale had been open, but it couldn't have been as long as its sister-pub. The place itself was simple and many storied, using the best of the space in the high, crooked building. On the ground floor was a small bar where food and drinks could be bought, and above were many sets of cramped rooms that Harry planned on relocating to as soon as he found suitable work in the Wizarding world.

Before that though, he would need to familiarise himself with the current wizarding world, which was why he was sitting in the pub to begin with. Pubs and inns, he had learnt from experience, were some of the best places to discover things, especially things he wasn't meant to discover; the patrons where he worked were a prime example of how loose-lipped people became when they drank. Not to mention that he needed a place to stall and try a few surreptitious spells with his new wand. He wasn't sure how the New Ministry picked up on such things, but outside of Wizarding areas there was a far greater possibility that they would be monitoring magical activity, and he wasn't nearly ready enough to risk being found. A few trips to Alchemic Alley had afforded him the last part of his disguise – a set of plain black robes – and with them he faded into the crowds as easily as anyone else.

Idly he flicked his wand at the now empty Butterbeer, intending to shift it gently around the table.

It flew into the wall with a rare speed and shattered dramatically.

Wide-eyed, it took Harry a moment to snap out of his shock enough to notice the stares he'd drawn, but muttered a "Sorry" and a swift Reparo under his breath, reaching around the table to pick up the reassembled glass bottle and ponder what it could mean. He'd never got a reaction out of his old wand like that, not at all – things had worked exactly like they were supposed to. Frowning pensively, he shifted the bottle in his hand until it was facing with the embossed writing upwards. Either wand technology had improved drastically over the past fourteen years, or his old wand hadn't been as powerful as he had thought. But then…it was a brother wand, wasn't it? And he knew enough to remember that it was the magical cores that gave a wand their power, so if that had been the case then Voldemort had been working with a weak wand all this time, something he was sure the Dark Lord would have realised and improved upon. Still…it seemed equally implausible that wand technology had had such a breakthrough after five hundred years of the same techniques.

_It must simply be that I'm more compatible with this wand_, Harry thought to himself weakly, then more firmly. "Ghost Ptarmigan," he said under his breath, turning the words over in his mind. A faint smile crossed his face. He'd seen ptarmigans once, as Dudley flicked through the channels and paused on a nature program to demand something from his parents. Birds that shed their brown colouring and became white in winter, looking like little mounds of snow with eyes. Somehow the information had returned from the depths of his brain – a memory long forgotten and now suddenly relevant.

Then there was the vision to consider. A slight frown appeared on his features as he recalled it. It was certainly not normal, and most definitely suspicious, but…there had been so much power at the very tips of his fingers, if only he chose to reach out and take it. Everything had seemed so easy, so achievable. Harry pushed the memory away, for now – he would examine it when he had had time to practise with his new wand. Maybe the answers would be clearer once he had slept on it.

Waving a bored looking barmaid over, he asked for another Butterbeer. With Ollivander's refusal of his payment, Harry found himself far richer than he had imagined he would be by the end of the day, and discovering that he wasn't down 40 or so pounds was enough to make him want to celebrate, if only a little. On the other hand, he had supplies to buy that he wouldn't have been able to otherwise. He wasn't exactly planning to spend the £40 worth of galleons on books, but being unsure of inflation or money values anymore, he wasn't quite certain how much he would be required to. As it was, the prices for Butterbeer had gone up, but only by a few knuts.

Before his very limited shopping spree though, Harry needed to find a newspaper, beginning his foray into wizarding past by starting with the present. He peered around the ground floor of the inn as best he could from his seat, ignoring the few curious stares he received. Eventually, he spotted one lying by a vicious looking old…well, he thought it was a woman. He wouldn't put it past the wizarding world to have a mysterious third sex, but that was something he really didn't want to think about. Bravely he grasped his Butterbeer and wandered over to the figure.

"Excuse me," he asked politely, "are you done with this?"

He received a grunt in reply, and after a moment of indecision he took it as a yes and returned to his seat, paper in hand. Flipping it open, he received one of the most unpleasant shocks of his life.

The entire front page was taken up by a photo of himself, scowling darkly out at the world, still bespectacled and a little younger. When it saw him, his double lifted a hand to make an obscene gesture and bare its teeth in a snarl. Resisting the urge to snap the newspaper shut at once, he forced himself to continue reading, although he was not able to stifle one anxious glance around the room.

'**ANOTHER FALSE HARRY POTTER AT LARGE!**' the headline screamed, and he was momentarily distracted by his picture shooting a haughty, arrogant stare his way. Shaking his head, he plowed on.

'_A fifth impostor under the guise of Harry Potter is at large, the New Ministry released today. Since the tragic disappearance of the Boy-Who-Lived in 1996, many have tried to deceive and trick their way into his place, but to no avail. Little information is available on this newest reappearance of the boy-hero, but sources within the New Ministry conclude that this is the most dangerous yet. During a brief encounter with New Ministry personal and two off-duty Vindicators, the false Boy-Who-Lived managed to incapacitate four and injure the other two, presumably escaping into the Muggle world._

_The New Ministry urges all witches and wizards to treat the impostor with extreme caution, and if sighted do not approach or draw attention to yourself, under any circumstances. Summon the Vindicators as soon as you are able, and keep your wand about you at all times._

_(For more on the Boy-Who-Lived, see page 2)_

_(For more on the impostors, see page 3)'_

Harry almost groaned out loud. _Why couldn't anything be easy?_ he wanted to shout, _why is it that every time I get somewhere, they're always two paces ahead?_ Instead, he took a sip of his Butterbeer to steady his shaking hands and flipped it onto the next page. Below an advert for non-melt-able cauldrons was a short and out of proportion account of his life, glossing over the Ministry smear campaigns and lauding his 'brave warnings' of Voldemort's return after the Tri-Wizard Tournament. He scoffed lightly and continued reading.

Page 3 was a flamboyantly wordy article on the various impostors, stressing the 'danger' they posed, and pointedly reminding the public of what they had done in the past. The fact that his second impostor had robbed a Muggle bank under his name and tried to cheat Gringotts for his vault had made him smother a panicky laugh, but nothing else was of particular interest. It seemed that the 'false Harry's' had been used for pretty unimaginative purposes after all – Dark wizards trying to discover the schemes of the opposition, a rebel New Ministry worker trying to draw out an attack, a member of the public trying to lay claim to his fame, and another for his fortune.

Folding over to the next side, he let his eyes drift over what seemed to be two pages dedicated to the updated crimes and sightings of known criminals, ranked in order. Hiding a frown he flipped to the next page and the next, eyes widening in surprise as he realised that at least six pages of the newspaper were dedicated to criminals and their rankings in order of danger and infamy. He picked out a few names that he recognised from the later pages, if only vaguely, but turning back to the beginning of the list he felt his eyes widen as he took in the top names. Listed first was, unsurprisingly, '_He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'_, but that was followed closely by '_Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore'_, the _'Impersonator of Harry James Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One', 'Rufus Scrimgeour', 'Alastor 'Mad-eye' Moody' _and '_Amelia Bones'._ After these were an assortment of Death Eaters, members of the Order of the Phoenix and various others that he didn't recognise.

This time Harry did break away from the newspaper, letting it fall unseen to the tabletop. So it had come to this. He wasn't sure how he felt about Albus Dumbledore making the second most wanted and dangerous man after Voldemort, but after the previous year he certainly didn't feel the amount of sorrow he would have otherwise. There was some of course - he still respected the man, but that respect and loyalty was somewhat more tainted than it had been. If the headmaster had been straight with him, had chosen to meet his eyes and explain why he was avoiding him, why he was allowing him to be treated so brutally at Snape's hands during their Occlumency sessions…

With a sudden cold chill, Harry realised that he hadn't even thought of continuing Occlumency in the months of his return. With the headlines today, there was no chance that Voldemort wouldn't attempt to try and connect through his dreams and verify his identity. _Not when it worked so well last time_, he thought darkly. There was no way he could learn Occlumency well enough to fend him off yet, even if he spent every waking moment practising. For a start there was no one to practise against, and even if Snape had proved more of a hindrance than a help Harry had to admit that there would be no way to tell if his was learning anything at all without someone experienced to test him.

With a start, he realised that his hand had clenched unconsciously where it rested on the newspaper, creasing the thin paper in his fist. He released it and smoothed it out, unable to stop himself from casting another nervous glance around the room. A man turned away, returning to his conversation with the woman opposite.

The more he thought about it, the more Harry realised that realistically there really was no way that he would be able to prevent Voldemort from discovering that he was the real deal and not a fake at all. Pretty much the only thing he _could_ do was hope that the man would have become tired by the fifth imitation and not bother, and that wasn't much of a hope at all. Voldemort was meticulous and obsessive – all it would take was a brief bit of mind meddling, an investigation of their peculiar link, and then he would know – it was an opportunity he wouldn't let pass. If there had been any spell, simple or complex, that would have prevented the visions last year then he was sure that Dumbledore would have employed it. There was nothing that Harry would be able to miraculously discover in Alchemic Alley that his professor had not already considered, and he would be a fool to waste better-spent time. Still, some part of him wanted to believe that he would walk into the relocated Flourish and Blotts or some dingy second hand bookshop and discover the answer to his problems in one simple spell.

_Avada Kedavra_, he thought cynically. _That would answer enough of my problems._

Since his arrival in the bowels of the New Ministry, Harry had had ample time to consider and sort through his tangled doubts and anxieties of the previous year. In the Department of Mysteries, just after hearing Bellatrix' mocking of his dreams and feeling a weight settle in his belly, he had had an epiphany. No doubt his misguided mission to the Department of Mysteries had been exactly what Dumbledore had feared would occur if he left his mind unguarded, and he could connect now the surge of pure hatred he had felt when he looked at the old man to the second hand emotions he received from Voldemort from time to time. He hadn't met his eyes because the Dark Lord felt him through them. He hadn't taught him Occlumency so as not to become tangled in what could very well turn into a battle staged in his favourite student's mind. But still…Harry felt a frisson of anger rise in him at the clumsy way in which the old man had gone about it. Surely someone of his experience and intelligence could have thought of a little more workable way to get around the situation? Truly, what harm could have happened if he told him the truth? Harry would have panicked, for sure, but the idea of Voldemort inside his head would have been more than enough to provide the appropriate cattle prod and plunge him into furious work. Dumbledore was no fool; he must have understood that.

Glancing back down at the page he traced the benign looking wizard looking up at him from the paper. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that there was far more to the man than the surface he presented, and he cursed himself for not pressing deeper when he had the chance. Merlin knew where Dumbledore was now, and frankly Harry wasn't so keen to run into him again. Honesty hadn't been the professor's forte so far, and he was almost certain that he would be given a highly edited version of the past fourteen years if he were to locate him and demand answers. At least this way the information would be more or less complete, even if the going proved to be slow. Harry was certain; he didn't want to rely on anyone other than himself anymore, because he knew with a guilty twinge that if he were in any of his friends or professors' places then he would undoubtedly do some severe editing to the tales he told himself.

Rubbing wearily at his eyes, he flipped past the ranking of the top 50 criminals and their profiles; he would read over them more closely later on. Then, placing a finger in-between the pages to hold his place, he returned to the front to take a closer look at the logo on the cover. Not very reassuringly, it read 'The Daily Prophet'. Part of him regarded the paper as little more than a disgraceful and untrustworthy rag, but a tiny part of him was relieved to find that _some_ things hadn't changed, even if it seemed more of a catalogue for criminals and battles than a report on recent events.

_Or perhaps this is all that has happened recently,_ a voice told him.

Uneasily, he scanned the following page.

A small section was dedicated to the deceased, another to a recent attack in the Muggle world that had caused the Thames to surge over its banks in seven places, flooding and severely damaging several houses. Then, over the page Harry breathed a sigh of relief; a non-violent article cropped up here, and he got his first good look at Arnold Peasgood, head of the New Ministry.

He wasn't a man of any great stature; indeed, he was about middling height, with a thin, sharp gaze. His face was bland, his hair greying lightly around the temples, and he was slightly round around the middle. Yet, standing on the podium and talking to the crowds, Harry could see that he had more than enough charisma to get past his rather unassuming appearance. Fudge had been an idiot, but at times he had been as sly as a snake, and the people had loved him because he did his best to appear exactly as they wanted him to. _This_ man didn't seem like an idiot at all, and that scared Harry more than he would like to admit. Scanning the article, he picked up phrases like '_crack down on illegal forms of transport'_, '_new methods for storing and punishing criminals', 'take down the threats posed as efficiently and methodically as we know how', 'introduce stricter policies involving the sale of goods' _and '_create a safer and more peaceful environment for the future generations'._

Rubbing his eyes, Harry shut the newspaper with finality. He couldn't bring himself to read anymore – he'd wait until he was back at his flat with time to calm down and think rationally before he began going through it. Folding it in half and tucking it into his robes, he paid for his drink and made his way back out onto the street.

It was lighter now, with more shoppers darting here and there, and Harry quickly made his way up the hill towards Flourish and Blotts. He planned to make a thorough exploration of all the available bookstores sometime in the future, but he knew from absentminded browsing that those lower down the chain had very little to offer, and as much as it bothered him to think that he might be helping them to be booted out of their place in the hierarchy, he really had no obligation towards any of them.

Flourish and Blotts was much the same as it had been in Diagon Alley, if only with a different layout, and as such it was just as packed as he expected it to be. Without television, the wizarding celebrities made their success through books, and these were eaten up just as voraciously as the flickering box was in the Muggle world.

The first difference however, was the arrangement of the books. As soon as he entered, he was assaulted by hundreds of different titles under defence, borderline dark spells, jinxes, hexes and a history of curses. Harry could only assume that people were a little more safety conscious than they had been when he was at school. He amused himself with the image of an angry mob deposing Umbridge as he browsed the titles. There was no way the public would stand for that kind of teaching now. Starting from one side, he worked systematically through the section, picking out books he thought would be useful to him. In the end, his pared down pile comprised of the titles '_A History of Tracking Spells: What to watch out for', 'Dark Curses: What the enemy is using today', 'Defensive hexes and jinxes', 'Simple Battle Strategies: The Tried and True', _and '_Duelling for Beginners'_.

Frowning, Harry tallied up the total and debated putting one of them back. He had the rest of the shop to browse, and he would need at least a sixth and seventh year book in each of the subjects he had been studying. Piling them up under his arm, he moved toward the back of the shop, not yet comfortable with the idea of using his wand to float them in the middle of precariously balanced shelves and books. Onto the pile went the set texts for his last two years of schooling in Potions, DADA, Charms, Transfiguration, and a book entitled '_Practical Uses for Ancient Runes'_.

Pausing at a convenient table, Harry took stock of his books.

"Fourteen," he muttered pensively, spreading them out, looking for one to sacrifice. He hadn't thought that they would come to quite so much. He had seven galleons spare from the wand, and another five that he had converted. That pretty much emptied out his meagre savings – what was left back at the flat was to cover any unforeseen emergencies that might occur. To spend nearly all of that on books…it made Harry uncomfortable. He reluctantly put back '_Simple Battle Strategies'_ and '_Practical Uses for Ancient Runes'_. A short while later he had paid for his books and left the shop with a significantly lighter purse.

Stopping just outside the store, he tried to make a mental inventory of what he might need. At some point he would need to get a potions kit and a cauldron, but other than that his mind drew a blank.

Across the street he spied the gently glittering sign of a broom shop, and drifted powerlessly over. In the window lay the latest model, sleek and polished, the twigs so straight and clipped that it looked as if barely a touch to the broom would make it spring to life. Harry tried not to contemplate just how much money he would need to save up to get that broom. Probably more than he would earn in a year. Still…he was tempted to try and justify a reason to get a broom. If he was found out – if he needed to escape…

Tearing himself away, Harry irritably continued down the street, mood suddenly soured. He couldn't keep letting himself act as if he had the relative fortunes he was used to. Remembering his rather small amount of change left, he exited Alchemic Alley. The other bookshops and the potions ingredients could wait for another time.

* * *

In his tiny room back in Muggle London, Harry sat slouched against his mattress, gazing at his new wand with nothing short of awe. He'd spent the last five or so hours in an empty house on the opposite side of the river, practising. It was being sold soon, but Harry had unlocked the door and 'borrowed' it for a little while, and in those five hours he had had more fun with magic than he'd had in the last five years. Simple objects moved so fast that they shattered, repairing spells fixed everything in the near vicinity, cleaning spells left the house without a speck of dust…he hadn't wanted try any destructive spells when even a simple Wingardium Leviosa sent things through the ceiling.

Back in his own room, he pawed excitedly through his books, searching for some reason for this newest development. So far, he had only come up with three. Either it was his wand, himself, or some effect of being hurtled into the future.

Over the years he had become used to understanding the ways in which spells were classified, and the facts and figures listed below the spell that he had generally skipped had grown to be quite useful. It detailed the name, the incantation, any defining sensory features of the spell, the relative concentration required, the current restrictions on it, the distance it could travel before dissipating, the relative power required to cast it wordlessly and verbally, the average power outage when cast wordlessly, and the average power output when cast verbally.

For the first three years or so of his education, this had meant little to nothing to Harry, but as he progressed into his fourth and fifth year it had begun to have greater influence on his studies. Transfiguration in particular had required very precise control and understanding of these values. McGonagall had stressed again and again that too much power or too little power in transfiguration would render the spell ineffective or dangerous. That had prompted a brief study of Mehler's Law of Power. Adelfried Mehler had been a 16th century German scholar who had attempted to create a measure of magical power. That is to say that the Innate Magical Power divided by the Power Requirement of the spell would equal the Power Output of the spell, with the Power Requirement measured on a scale of 0-50. Later on, a team of witches and wizards created a machine that measured the exact power output of any spell using the more complex version of Mehler's equations, and had named it after him. From that, it had allowed them to work out the average power output and input for each spell, and a new study of spellwork to unfold. At the end of the year, McGonagall had begun to teach them to manipulate the strength of their casting, but Harry hadn't exactly caught on.

In light of his current situation though, he regretted not paying more attention. Clearly he was reacting differently to the new wand, and unconsciously overloading his spells. Or, at least that was what he was leaning towards out of the three options he'd come up with. He doubted that the wand was much different to his last, and he hadn't come up with any logical ideas as to why being transported into the future would change his spell casting any. He'd tried to concentrate on what McGonagall had told them, dragging his mind back to the fuzzy lessons and snippets of thoughts. Even when he hadn't been able to stop his overloaded spells, he'd still been exhilarated. Nothing could bring him down this way, and he was sure that an overloaded blasting curse would be just as effective overloaded than not, if he did get into any battles.

Still, it did make for rather a difficult problem. He wouldn't dare practice his spells at his home in the Muggle world – too much could go wrong, and with this much magic going on he was sure that he wouldn't remain undetected for long. He desperately wanted to put up even a few anti-theft and privacy charms, but resigned himself to reading over the theory of Mehler's Magical Control in his Transfiguration textbook. The information was rather sparse and dull to read, but for once Harry actually saw a purpose in it all – not to mention that the benefits of learning such a thing were immediate. In Hogwarts it was only too easy to forget why he was learning magic as it was only boredom inducing toil, but out in the world where he had to use magic to survive, the drive was there and he found no difficulty at all in working. After all, he would only have himself to blame if he were caught up short in a battle because he hadn't done simple _reading_.

The night progressed, and Harry buried himself in his textbooks, unconsciously fingering his wand as he read.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore was not a happy man.

If the New Ministry sources were to be believed, and if they had released it to the public then there was generally a grain of truth in it, then there was yet another impostor abound. He gently folded the morning paper on another article concerning the Boy-Who-Lived and sat back in his chair, entwining his fingers. He could understand a great many things beyond the scope of most witches and wizards, and his power was rivalled only by Voldemort himself, but the mystery concerning the boy-hero Harry Potter had been beyond all of them, even him. A gob-smacked Fudge had allowed him full access to the Department of Mysteries and the files kept by the Unspeakables after witnessing his taxing duel – "W-was t-that You-Know-W-who?" – with Voldemort. Even with the co-operation of the Unspeakables who had worked on the object it wasn't to be understood.

Albus had been forced to sit back and watch the Wizarding world explode outwards like a supernova as they learned about their missing Saviour.

Over the decades he had grown as a wizard Albus had admitted to himself that he had considerable talent in both magic and manipulation. These were born out of an innate understanding of the way people worked, and the way that he himself worked, mixed in with not a small amount of intelligence. Like Harry, he had been precariously balanced between Gryffindor and Slytherin during his sorting, even though he had more than enough smarts for Ravenclaw and loyalty for a Hufflepuff. Instead he had graced Gryffindor house, and used his time to the best of his abilities. He had often been remarked upon for his quiet grace and effortless talent in magic. It was something that simply came naturally to him and, had he been a less observant man, he would have wondered why other students found it so difficult to achieve what he could with a hand-flick.

This had put him in the unique position of being able to foresee and prepare for the devastating effects that the disappearance of Harry Potter would and did cause. The following year and an attack on Hogwarts later, he officially closed the school and placed his focus fully on the Order of the Phoenix. The school had accepted him as its current Headmaster, even if it had sealed itself after the public closure, and it still granted him access, despite him being stripped of the official title of headmaster by the Board of Governors.

Voldemort gained control, which forced the Ministry to split into its current two factions. The New Ministry had taken a draconian hold over the Wizarding world, even while they knew that the real power was divided four ways. The wizarding public was also aware of this, and while the New Ministry ruled in name, there were constant battles and power struggles between them, the Order, Voldemort and the Old Ministry. Beneath the 'higher powers' lay a shifting, writhing mass of other forces, all striving for dominance. The vampires had chosen their time to come into the open, declaring that they were their own people and would fight only for themselves. The werewolves had split into different packs, some under Greyback fighting for Voldemort, others convinced to join the Order, and yet more simply struggling to survive. It created beautiful patterns to his experienced eye, each new development opening like the petals of a flower, each possibility stretching infinitely into the distance. It required a delicacy of the hand that set a fire alight beneath him – he had never felt more alive, more challenged and driven in his life. This was the game that Voldemort and he had been playing for decades, but now everyone else had joined, adding facets that he couldn't even have begun to conceive of fifteen years ago, when the Dark Lord had just risen again.

Still, Albus could not say that he was happy.

The disappearance of Harry Potter had struck him harder than any of those around him, because he understood the implications. The boy had been the weight on the scales that could win or lose the fight for them, the bargaining chip that would catch the game. Without him, the world would hang in limbo. Until his return, there would be a vicious equilibrium. It could stretch for the next hundred years!

But it couldn't, after all.

Albus understood enough of Fate to know that his presence in the world was necessary for the boy's return, just as Voldemort's was. They had been present in the building of him, and they must be present for his reappearance. He knew that neither Voldemort nor himself would lie with Mother Earth until the boy returned and settled their conflicts.

He gently ran a finger over the edges of the photograph that peered out from under the folded newspaper. He needed to find this impostor, before the New Ministry did. He wondered why they had released the information at all, and mused for a moment that the impersonator might already be held within the bowels of one of their fortress-like building, a place that not even he would be able to enter. Not even Fawkes, who crooned softly at him from his perch, could penetrate those walls. They had made quite sure of it.

All he could pray was that his people got to the impostor first, for if there was even the smallest chance that it wasn't an impostor at all…well, in his mind it didn't bear contemplating. Too much was at stake for such a failure.

* * *

Harry awoke to the sound of voices. That in itself was nothing worrying – his neighbours were often loud and the sound travelled through the thin walls like electricity through copper wire. The difference this time was that they were raised threateningly, the sound carrying from the bottom of the building. Jerking himself awake, Harry padded towards the door, drawing his wand from under his pillow after a brief moment of hesitation.

He inched the door gently open and moved into the sparse hallway, peering inquisitively over the balcony. The sounds were louder out here – he could almost pick out words.

They sounded official.

In between the curt statements he could pick out the strained voice of his landlord. He sounded both panicked and stubborn, as well he should be. He knew that Dave wasn't averse to a little indulgence in certain illegal substances, and neither were his lodgers. The scent of pot floating down from the attic, and the occasional discarded needle weren't uncommon occurrences. Harry had learnt to get used to them, even shared a quick smoke with the ex-hippie couple who lived above him on occasion. They were nice enough people, if a little slow to talk to.

There was a pause downstairs, and then Dave's quiet voice. It seemed he'd relented.

Making a snap decision, Harry darted back into his room, roughly pushing back the mattress and grabbing his savings from beneath the floorboard. He shoved his clothes into his rucksack and made a grab for his sleeping bag. Slinging it over his shoulder, he quietened his frantic breathing and listened. Yes…there were footsteps.

Moving to stand behind the door, Harry drew his wand. It was a last resort, he'd have to move houses he knew, but he couldn't be caught. They might not even be coming for him, but that was no reason for complacency. The steps paused on his landing, and a man's voice murmured something indistinct.

Then… "Potter!" Harry inhaled harshly. "Come out with your hands above your head." There was a pause. "If you come quietly, it'll be one less charge against you in the end."

The door opened, and Harry hoped he wasn't about to make a huge mistake.

"Stupefy," he whispered, feeling a shudder as the spell swept forwards.

There was a thump, and a figure fell into the room. Then another, though he couldn't see them, and another, and another. Above him, the sound repeated, like dominoes all through the house.

With a shudder, Harry pulled on his trainers and crushed his sleeping bag into its case. He needed to leave.

* * *

In the depths of the New Ministry, a machine began to emit a low rumble. At her desk, a woman jerked awake and stood up, grumbling. Pacing over to the delicate structure of metal and wire, she tapped it with her wand and idly watched the numbers belched out in a cloud of pink smoke. She turned slowly towards a drawer, tugging free a map and spreading it on her desk. With a few experienced turns of a metal instrument she had added a small marker to it, and five minutes later she had pinpointed the area. Frowning, she prodded the machine once more. It was the second time these readings had appeared, but apparently she'd been deeply asleep for the first one.

"Such a high power surge," she mumbled under her breath, before smiling grimly.

The Vindicators were busy, but Nymphadora Tonks was not. Snapping her fingers impatiently, she summoned her team.

* * *

Harry slammed through the front door with little difficulty, barrelling into the street. He desperately needed time to think. Blinking wildly, still barely dressed, he began to jog in the direction of a main road. He'd catch a taxi, where he could sit safely without having to worry about being caught.

Twenty minutes later he was pulling on something more appropriate than his loose pyjama trousers in the back of the car, much to the distaste of the cabby. Finally he slumped into his seat, risking a look back over his shoulder.

"What's up with you then?" the driver inquired, not overly politely.

Harry gaped for a moment before resolving his face into something resembling stricken. "Girlfriend dumped me," he muttered, looking down at the pile of his belongings on the seat beside him. "She got…violent."

The driver let out a muffled laugh and stuck up casual conversation with him, which Harry answered mindlessly, trying desperately to sort the recent events out in his head.

The Muggle police were after him.

He'd shamelessly raided their jackets, checking that they were still unconscious all the way. From that he'd got several badges and identity tags, identifying each of them. After a fleeting moral struggle, he'd emptied their wallets too. He hadn't got much, but it was well over £100, and he figured that he needed it more than they did at the moment.

He didn't want to think about how he was going to find somewhere else to stay. With the magic he'd used to stun the officers, there was no way that it would go undetected. The only reason that he'd allowed his practice sessions was because they weren't anywhere near where he _lived_. He hadn't _meant_ to drop everyone in the house, but he hadn't been able to control it either. He'd just…panicked. He needed to work on that, or he'd be running until next year. He didn't like the idea of having to shift house every time he so much as cast a spell – places with decent rent and no questions asked weren't exactly easy to find. With a pang in his chest that the word 'girlfriend' had aroused, he thought of Nicola, someone he'd become more than a little fond of. Biting his lip, he fumbled through his bag for the mobile phone she'd bought him and painstakingly sent her one short, apologetic farewell text. Then he erased her number from the address book, leaving it empty.

The cab dropped him off near Tower Bridge leaving him to walk absently along the Thames. He had until nightfall to find somewhere to sleep, and if that failed then he was sure that he could impinge upon church steps for a night. He had a sleeping bag, after all. Worried, Harry realised that this was getting to be more than he could handle.

With a sigh, he sat down on the curb and rested his chin on his bags.

_Calm Harry; think this through_, he murmured inwardly. If he stayed in the Muggle world, he would eventually be caught. No doubt about that. The newspapers would have his face all over them, just like in the Wizarding world. If it weren't by the police, then no doubt the New Ministry would pick up the magic. Even if it turned out they weren't monitoring magic outside their own world, then he still couldn't afford to take chances, not until he knew for certain. If he stayed in the Muggle world then he would end up shifting constantly, practising here and there each day, trying to master his power without help or teaching. But then the Wizarding world wouldn't be any better. If he made his home there then people would notice that he couldn't even cast the simplest spells properly, and he didn't exactly want to get a name for himself by violently overloading his spells. In the wizarding world he would inevitably be forced to use his wand at some point, and then the truth would come out, with predictably disastrous consequences. In the Muggle world it would pass by with less notice, but the power of the spells would be cast into relief by his surroundings.

He really was caught between a rock and a hard place.

* * *

Nymphadora frowned at the empty room. Nothing would have suggested that a wizard lived here, but for the remnants of a very powerful spell. As her team scouted the rest of the house and interrogated the occupants, she simply stood in the room that had been the wizard's living space for a little over four months, if the landlord could be trusted.

The Stunner wasn't an overly complex spell. It required little to no skill and could be cast by almost anyone with a wand in their hand. It was one of the reasons that the lower ranked Vindicators favoured it so. However, even a Vindicator grunt would have been able to see that the spell used here had been grossly overpowered, so much so in fact that it had begun to shred the carefully configured spell net, leaving the entire room pasted in unfocused magic. Only someone very inexperienced would mistreat the spell so much and risk the drain afterwards.

The Muggle policemen that had been struck would shine like beacons on her map of London for nearly a week if they weren't cleansed.

With an expert flick of her wand she began the lengthy process of picking up traces of the last occupant. Magic wasn't a faithful dog to sit still and peaceful; it roamed, it gnawed, it shook things up, whether or not the wizard knew. It was subtle, but even before the start of the Second War methods had been known, been in development. All it took was the will to know, the right spell to lure the magic out, trap the signs in a definitive shape. Before she'd even been born there had been ways to recreate history. A sensible family either drenched their home in magic to disguise it, as with Hogwarts, or they periodically removed magical traces. With the lack of control her target seemed to have, she had no doubt that she would be able to catch him out.

She wasn't wrong.

Before her the floor moved with an amorphous ghostly swell that slowly resolved itself into a figure. Nymphadora gasped and fiercely cut the shape from the air.

For a moment she only leant back against the doorframe, eyes closed, stilling her beating heart. When she finally opened her eyes they had already darkened with resignation.

* * *

Bellatrix Lestrange knelt at the feet of her master, letting his voice wash over her. The sound was one she could listen to until she died, divine meanings from countless times over. There was only one thing that she was sure of, and it was that the voice meant power. It cradled her pathetic form, rendered her mind and body small and helpless. She imagined that this it what it would feel to stand before a God.

Her master lay just one step away from that divinity.

"I need the boy."

Soft. Soft sound, all sibilance.

"As you wish my lord."

The Dark Lord chuckled lightly. Bellatrix felt a shiver pass down her spine, part pleasure part fear. It was only right to fear.

"And can I trust you with this task, Bella?"

Only too right to feel fear.

"I will do everything within my power my lord. I will gladly suffer for my failures."

She felt the weight of that gaze rest on her, every grain, every particle of thought steadily weighing, judging. When she lifted her head, powerless to resist the foreign force that commanded her, when she met his eyes, she knew that nothing was hidden from him. Since the death of the last there had been no traitors in his ranks. She would never turn against him any more than she could turn against her own skin, but something in her always worried, always _feared_ that he would judge and find her wanting.

"You will report to me with anything you find. I want him brought to me alive."

She bowed her head.

* * *

After the initial spells, it hadn't been difficult to track him. The magic that he'd so liberally used had cloaked everything, even him: it left a trail like a wounded animal dripped blood.

She and her team had followed the signs to the South Bank, where the boy sat staring miserably out over the Thames. She'd only hesitated for a moment, when he'd said 'Tonks?' in that surprised, relieved voice. It had moved her, but only for a moment. You didn't survive by giving in to pity, and she did pity him.

Back at her desk, Nymphadora sighed with guilt and disappointment. The boy had come so quietly you could almost believe he was the real thing. But, real or not, he was no longer her concern. She'd cut those ties years ago.

It was up to the New Ministry Level Nine witches and wizards to deal with him now.

* * *


	4. Introducing The Players

**Chapter Four: Introducing the Players**

Touched. That's what Anita Peasgood thought when she first saw the boy. He was touched in the head.

He sat limply in his restraints, staring out at the room with dead eyes. He might as well have been cast in monotone for all the life he gave off. Something had been smothered out of existence in this boy, and she didn't want to be the one to find out what it was.

She shuffled in her seat, in sympathy for the boy's unnatural stillness.

"I guess we can pass on your name for now," she said haltingly, more to herself than anyone else, because the boy certainly wasn't listening.

"Why were you in the Muggle world?"

Silence.

She shifted again, shuffled her papers and ran through the questions as quickly as she could. This, she thought to herself, was a sign of their times. When a boy no older than seventeen was as glazed and unresponsive as a corpse, something was truly wrong with the world that she had only just been exposed to. As the daughter of the Minister, she had been under heavy security for the majority of her life. Even she didn't know why her father had chosen to have a child before the outbreak of another war, but she refused to ask either of her parents. She was considered, even among the ranks of the New Ministry, a prodigy child, and she would figure it out herself. At the age of 13 she had begun to do minor paper work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She was a fondly known face in the Vindicators Hub, where they relaxed and slept in shifts.

At nineteen, she had landed her fifth ever 'interrogation' case, and it wasn't going well. She would figure this out, as well.

"Please talk to me," she pleaded, just a note of anxiety creeping into her voice. There. A flicker in the eyes, something like recognition, some poor imitation of life. She had a theory about this one. "Please." She spoke at barely more than a whisper. "Or they'll-" She put a hand over her mouth and forced an expression of horror to cross her face. As if she'd let something slip that she shouldn't have.

He stirred, moving dry lips slightly.

"That's it," she coaxed, waving one of the guards over to conjure a glass of water. She held it to his lips and made the motions of pouring it tenderly into his mouth, even if most of it sloshed down his chin.

"Thank you," he mouthed without voice, and she smiled angelically. She was good at getting the responses she wanted when she put her mind to it.

"Are you all right now?" She leant towards him, looking into his wide eyes. Up this close, she noticed that they were a pale green. _Strange_, she thought, _green eyes aren't common_.

He nodded tentatively, after a pause.

"I'm glad," she said slowly, pulling her chair up so that she could sit closer and watch his reactions. "I thought you weren't going to wake up there for a moment…you'd gone into shock."

"I…" the syllable was barely more than a croak, before he tried again. "I can't really remember-" he looked down, regarding his bonds blankly.

"They're just for show," she hastened to assure him. "We get a lot of dangerous people in here and daddy thinks I'll be hurt if I interviewed all of them when they weren't…" She trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the restraints.

He blinked up at her, seeming to notice for the first time that he was being questioned by someone barely older than himself. Anita tried not to let her frustration show on her face, but some of it must have leaked through because he looked down again.

"If you answer some of the questions then we both get to leave early hmm?" she proffered. "They won't keep you here too long."

He looked at her briefly, smiled, and then caught sight of the guards behind her. His face fell easily into a frown.

"This is the New Ministry." It was a statement, delivered flatly.

Anita felt her resolve falter. "Yes," she admitted, "but the good bit."

His expression seemed to tighten, become thinner. "When will I be released?" he asked dully.

Anita watched him with concern. This wasn't just anybody before her. This was someone unique. She wanted to solve him. Therefore she was surprised when she heard her voice waver uncertainly.

"I don't know."

To her luck, that seemed to make him a fraction more amiable to her. He met her gaze resignedly.

"There's nothing I can do really, is there?" he said with a mirthless smile. "Ask away."

Anita nodded, shuffled her papers and began to speak. There were reasons why the Minister's daughter was used in these little games of question and answer, especially with the more impressionable prisoners. Arnold Peasgood was very much aware of his only child's skills, and being the man he was, he put her to good use. It wasn't any child that could be universally liked and respected by the Vindicators, but she had been and she still was. The girl would have been a Slytherin if there ever was one, observing people with a fixation that only Albus Dumbledore would be able to understand - they were a constant source of fascination, with their quirks and differences, yet all fundamentally the same. They were as enjoyable to unwrap as Christmas presents, except that each layer yielded only one piece of the final product, and Anita excelled in it. After all, there had been little else to amuse her during her childhood.

The boy sighed, and opened his mouth to reply.

* * *

Harry was beginning to view the New Ministry like an ever-spiralling staircase, one that only led down. He'd started somewhere near the top. He'd known. There had been windows, with real daylight. Each day he dropped a level, changed rooms, changed guards, interrogators. The windows disappeared. The light was magically produced. He felt he was growing paler, thinner, like a plant in the dark. 

_Deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole Harry_, he told himself, _round and round we go._

Anita Peasgood hadn't been all she'd seemed, but she'd been kind about getting information out of him. Jonathan Marshall had been brusque, but he hadn't hurt him. Vivian had at least let him take his contacts out. George had landed the first blow. They'd stopped giving away their names when they started hurting him, and he stopped asking.

_Ninth level_, he thought to himself. It made sense. He imagined the New Ministry was like the nine levels of hell, and hoped he wouldn't sink any deeper.

Oh, he'd been brave. It was easy enough to refuse questions first, refuse to give away his identity. The upper levels only asked questions, official questions without threats. He'd seen Doris at some point, maybe even days ago. She hadn't been kinder than the last time, and he'd been given to someone else because he knew her name.

It is easy to be brave, he'd thought. He'd withstood the Cruciatus curse before.

The Cruciatus is worse than a blow to the head.

The Cruciatus is worse than a kick to the ribs.

The Cruciatus is worse than a pain curse.

The Cruciatus is worse than blood flowing back to bloodless limbs.

The Cruciatus is worse than the blood-boiling curse.

The Cruciatus was just as bad as it had been the first time round.

_Voldemort_, he'd thought panting on the floor afterwards, _cast a stronger curse than this._

It was so easy to play at being brave. In the graveyard, he'd watched Voldemort rise, and the Cruciatus had been unbearable. He'd been under it for a less than a minute and it had seemed an eternity. He survived the pain for two minutes this time.

My name is Harry James Potter, he'd said. I was in Hogwarts, fifth year, I've been hiding in the Muggle world, I know information about the Order of the Phoenix fourteen years old, I'll tell you everything I know.

Harry returned to reality with great difficulty. He had wanted to die. He still wanted to die. It was pain beyond imagining, pain beyond comprehension. It stripped away the fragile surface of his mind and exposed him raw to the world. He no longer cared who was in the room with them, what their names were, or how many of them there were. The only thing he cared about was not feeling that again. The cuts, the bruises, the drizzle of wet against the front of his trousers and the exhaustion all faded into the background when confronted with the pain of the Cruciatus, and the fear of it. All that was important was that the air continued to come in sweet short gasps into his lungs, and his vocal chords weren't used for screaming anymore. Dull pain erupted in his side and he curled in on himself, whimpering.

There was a crunch of grit against the stone floor, and then someone was crouching down next to him, a dark, blurred shape against the harsh lights.

"This is just the beginning. This will keep on coming, until you tell us what we want to know."

Harry shivered. They all had the same soft tones, the same voice, until he could almost believe it was one person doing this to him, or one person who inhabited multiple bodies. He imagined that they all had the same face as well behind the haze that prevented him from seeing them. _They must have used spells_, he thought. They all sounded the same. A bland, androgynous voice without real inflection or emotion.

"Please…"

They'd given up on potions and serums a level up. He'd yielded everything he was asked under them, but he gradually understood that they didn't just want answers. They wanted someone broken, pliable. They could afford to draw the struggles out until they'd bled him dry of fight.

"I'll ask you just once more. You've had five minutes to catch your breath. I think you're nearly ready for another round."

"No!" Harry gasped, muffled, twisting his head further into his stomach, trying to curl in on himself, present a smaller target. "No, please."

"You've refused to comply. We have no choice."

"No!" Harry whimpered, throwing a hand out, catching on the smooth leather of a boot. It moved, and ground down on his fingers. "No…it was…it-" He heard the flick of wand through the air, so clear that he could almost see the slashing motion, see the lips beginning to form the words _Cruc_- "No!" he burst out. "It was Croaker! Martin Croaker! Please! Do anything to him, just-" the words caught in his throat "-please…"

Nine levels down, nine days in, Martin Croaker was called away from his seat in the department and disappeared. Permanently. Harry lay on his back in the narrow stasis cell, body as stiff as if he were petrified, and tried to pinpoint when he'd broken. When he'd become so weak.

_Pain beyond pain,_ Harry thought, _nothing could have prepared me for it._

He moaned as he was released, and bit his lips to keep from talking. They gave him enough time to himself to regret, enough time to become guilty. When they finally accepted he was the real thing, they didn't know what to do. Their boy-hero wouldn't fight for the people who'd done this to him. He'd caught the words 'Obliviators' and 'destiny'. They took samples of his hair, his blood, his fingernails, shavings of his skin and teeth, his urine, his spittle, his semen, his tears, his memories. He was documented, tagged and catalogued. He was allowed to have his own 'free' cell, and a small bed. They no longer counted him as something to be stored, but something to be observed. They asked him questions, they staved off the pain, and then they reapplied it. He answered.

Inside the body of Harry Potter, something bitter was growing. In his mind, things changed, moved, rearranged. He disconnected.

He didn't know how long he'd been there, but he knew that on one of those days someone touched the centre of his palm with the tip of a stick and murmured something sibilant. He knew that one day he woke up and could feel a pressure lifted from his chest again. He knew that on the last day, a man with grey eyes pressed something into the hollow of his collarbone, and the world shifted around them.

* * *

He stared up at the ceiling, and watched it move like the shivering flanks of an animal. A little hunched up creature fed him a thin broth, trickling it down his throat. It both amused and fascinated him to see its wide, liquid eyes staring into his own. 

"Dippy will help you now."

When the sun began to rise, he moved from the bed to the window with all the difficulty of an old man. He stared across a field and tried to pretend to himself that he found the soft colours cast over the sky beautiful. He touched his hands to his face, and then shuffled into the bathroom. The face in the mirror was painful in how little it reflected the changes inside, and he searched his reflection for some sign of the person he was now compared to the one he'd been two weeks ago. His eyes were just as bright as they had ever been; the pupils expanded and contracted as he moved one palm over them. His cheeks held a little fat still, not the wasted gaunt face of a prisoner. There was a downturn to his lips, and the hollow of his mouth felt dry and cavernous. There was a raw patch on one of his molars that he reached a finger back to touch – part of his tooth was gone.

He ran himself a bath and let his hands trace the pieces of him that were missing.

When he looked in the mirror again, he felt a little more like himself.

When he returned to his room, there was a note on the bed that read 'This residence can be found at Number 5, Prairie Walk', and the things that he hadn't seen since Tonks had found him. Harry picked them up and let himself out of the door.

* * *

In a small café on the South Bank, Harry Potter sat nursing a mug of hot chocolate and staring dully out across the river. On the far side he could pick out the familiar spire of St. Paul's cathedral, overshadowed on all sides by office buildings. In front of it stretched the Millennium Bridge, smudged a dirty brown by the river as its sides were exposed in the low tide. 

_So much has changed in the world_, he thought, _but I can't._

The old Harry Potter wouldn't be able to survive in this world – he needed to erase all traces of himself, destroy everything that represented him until he was merely a shadow in everyone's minds, swallowed by darkness at the flick of a switch. He needed his identity to desert him.

For the first time since his entry into this world, he began to think clearly. Not in jumbled half-thoughts and half-truths where what he really needed to see became lost in the mess, but to look at his situation, himself, and see what truly lay beneath it all.

He saw a scared little boy, still locked in his cupboard.

Harry stifled the prickling feeling behind his eyes and the lump rising in his throat as best he could.

He saw, with unbiased clarity, that he would indeed have done well in Slytherin.

He saw not a hero, but a coward. He saw a coward who stayed to fight because underneath the rash ideas and pseudo-boldness, that was what was expected of him. When the world asked of you, you obeyed.

He saw a confused young man, confounded by the world around him, struggling to stay afloat in an ever-rising flood.

He saw Life's little cruelties and they way they descended on him like water spiralling down a plughole. Everyone suffered, but Harry was not everyone. He was Harry. All he could understand, and all he would ever be able to understand was his own suffering.

His saw his world changed irrevocably.

He saw himself struggle, and succeed, for awhile. He saw how he could work when he wasn't trying to fill the mould he had been poured into, for once.

He saw…rainfall.

Harry blinked, and squinted upwards. It seemed that the sky sympathised with him, and he remained sitting at the little metal table watching water gradually pool on its surface, penned in by the rim. At the moment, the only thing that mattered was himself.

He ignored the stares he got as people walked by with black umbrellas whilst he sat at his table, drenched through and through.

He was done with fighting. He'd fought, and now he'd run too. He decided that he didn't like running any better. The hot chocolate mixed with the rain, and he swallowed the last, letting the sickly sweet fluid flow down his throat. He cradled the mug in his hands, warming his cold fingers. People had managed in his absence. So why did he still do what was expected of him, when no one even believed their saviour was real anymore? Why had he still thought that his destiny was to kill Voldemort and save the world, deep down?

He closed his eyes.

"The world can go fuck itself," he murmured finally. "Harry Potter is dead."

He sat for awhile longer. Then he stood slowly, collecting his belongings. His sleeping bag was wet. He considered that he would probably regret it later, and then the thought passed. He'd lived through worse. The cruciatus curse was more unbearable than a night in a damp sleeping bag. As soon as he was out of sight, in a street that could almost pass for secluded, he flipped open his penknife and held the little pocket mirror up to his face. His pale reflection stared back at him, looking strange with black hair again. They'd changed it back. With the sleeve of his jacket, his wiped the hair away from his scar.

The cruciatus curse hurt more than a shallow cut, just deep enough to scar, he reminded himself. He slid the blade sideways into his skin. For a moment there was nothing but an angry red line, and then the blood began. He stopped, then started. Stopped again. In a series of jagged movements he managed to shave a sliver of skin off.

He wiped it away in disgust, and used one of his T-shirts to clean the blood from the knife and stem the flow.

Ten minutes later he stumbled back into populated areas and waited, dazed, whilst an alarmed looking couple phoned an ambulance.

He was flattered that a stern looking nurse still bandaged him up, even when he refused to speak. He stumbled back along the corridor when she went to talk to another patient, thanked the woman at reception, and made his escape into the street.

He smiled.

Harry Potter didn't exist.

* * *

_There were some things_, Mrs. Weasley reflected as she dragged another trunk into the back of the car, _that no woman should have to deal with in her lifetime._ This was one of them. She watched her sons throw what was left of their belongings into the trunks they'd been loaned. 

The Burrow smouldered.

"Ron!" she called out, an edge of panic to her voice. "Ron we're leaving!"

The man stood against the wreckage, leaning into the embrace of his young wife. Hermione offered him support in a way that no one else could, not even his family. He stood still and watched his home burn. It filled him with a dark, empty feeling to see it reduced like that, the spells surrounding it periodically flaring up in effervescent waves of light before falling. Bits and pieces that had been held up by magic crumbled and collapsed, until he could see the beams that had supported their home standing out like a blackened skeleton.

"We should go," Hermione murmured into his ear, but she made no move to do so.

Ron's eyes gradually focused on Bill, trudging out of their home with various scorched knickknacks cradled in his shirt.

Hermione's embrace gradually loosened, although she kept their fingers entwined. Ron took comfort in the familiar metallic click of their wedding rings, and finally consented in being turned round and led back to the car. He was old enough to deal with this, he reminded himself, he'd been through enough that it shouldn't matter.

With the family cramped into the Muggle taxi, he stared down the corridor of knees and seats, watching the world speed towards them through the windscreen. It was strange, he thought, that he should think of Harry Potter again at this time, but the thoughts slid to the surface like oil on water, every curl of colour bringing another memory to life. Harry would have been as devastated as he was at this moment, he knew. After all these years that he'd been gone, he could finally allow himself not to treat their friendship as a competition. There was no competition to be had with a dead man, after all. That part of his life, every moment defined by the presence of his messy haired friend, had been siphoned into a closed box, labelled and forgotten about. It occupied the same black space in his mind that the memories of his sister did, and he was ashamed to realise that he could no longer recall their faces. He always imagined them together now, shadows of red and black, which made it all the more difficult to think of them. With one came the other.

Hermione's hand squeezed his own and he knew without looking that similar thoughts occupied her own mind. The rough pad of her thumb ran over his knuckle, and he could feel her clammy palm against his own. It was a comforting sort of unpleasantness, because it reminded him that she was human, that she felt things just like he did.

Beside him he could hear the scratch of Charlie's pen as it skidded across the page of his journal. Charlie had no one to lean on, he realised, and neither did his mother. They tried with each other, they truly did, but they weren't the right people to try and comfort the other – they needed someone outside, someone who wasn't so intimately tied up in their family.

He squeezed Hermione's hand back, selfishly grateful to have someone there for him.

Time and tragedy had drawn them together. If Harry had survived, if Ginny had…then perhaps they would have been strong enough to seek other people, but they'd lived through too much together to ever be with someone else. Theirs was a relationship forged with pain and suffering, and a loyalty to the other born out of a shared desire to survive. They had the sanctuary of familiarity, the understanding of nineteen years of friendship and love. He needn't ask to see how she felt and she didn't have to think to know how to comfort him. They simply were.

They'd spoken about this a lot over the past few months, igniting old conversations; topics long laid to rest. He could see Hermione's serious face in front of him, biting her lip a little as she listened to his dark thoughts. He hadn't wanted to bring up the past – it was to tickle a sleeping dragon, nothing good could come of it. Harry was dead, Ginny was dead. He'd told her in no uncertain terms that he loved her, although they both knew with a twisting sense of unease that perhaps it wasn't choice that kept them together, but desperation. Of not being confident enough to risk trying and failing to find someone else.

"Remus has said we can stay at Headquarters for as long as it t-takes," Molly told her children, forcing false cheer into her voice. "All it'll take is a little cleaning to spruce the place up, and I'm sure he needs the company after all that time alone, he hasn't quite been the same since-" she cut herself off and made an overlarge gesture at blowing her nose to cover a small choked sound that had escaped her throat.

The word _Sirius_ hung in the air like a curse.

"I'm not going back to Romania mum," Charlie said finally, blankly. "I need to be here…you need me here."

It was a credit to her sorrow that Molly only murmured a small "Thank you Charlie. That's…it means a lot to me."

Ron couldn't help but beg whatever deities were watching them for the journey to be over. He couldn't bear to be in such a close atmosphere where the names of the dead crowded around them, as if there very ghosts took up their space, their oxygen – he took a deep breath and wished he were by one of the window seats so that he could lean out and at least pretend that all this didn't exist like a barrier between their family, like cracks in the building, like flames…

Harry, Sirius, Ginny, Arthur trailed through his mind in endless repetition, on loop, round and round till he thought he might go mad from the pressure of it.

Fred roughly wound down the window and a breeze buffeted his face, releasing the tension. He watched his brothers' stare at the blurred countryside together, hands and legs crossing, sharing some internal sorrow that left them silent and withdrawn. They all felt the loss; he could see it etched on every face. The Burrow had been the home of the entire family, their heart-home, the place that they shared together, and with that centre gone they were simply separate people drifting on an endless sea.

Ron had never been gladder to arrive at Grimmauld Place, entering the shadowed house with relief. In this place each could go their separate ways without feeling that they were abandoning the others.

Remus greeted them at the door with a wan smile. His hair had faded completely to grey and he looked like a ghost of himself, a badly painted copy.

"Molly," he murmured, pulling the woman into a gentle embrace. The old witch sniffled uncontrollably, and when he drew away he left a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Come down to the kitchen and I'll make tea. Albus should be here within half an hour."

Hermione tugged him towards the stairs, and he followed dutifully. They collapsed onto the bed in the room that they shared and she curled around him, lightly kissing his hair. His fingers caught in her curls.

"It's never going to end," he said quietly. "We'll stay here, and we'll carry on fighting, and we'll end up like Remus in the end, when everyone we loved is dead."

Hermione remained quiet but tightened her arms momentarily, and then gradually he heard her breathing steady and deepen as she fell into sleep.

* * *

Molly couldn't help but feel as if a piece of her were missing. There was a blankness to her grief – not the loss of a loved one; a husband or a child, but an expanse of grey that stretched before her like a lake. 

"You are safe here," Remus said quietly, regarding her with faint warmth in his expression.

She understood. The house was still under the Fidelius – they were welcome to hide themselves away within its walls just as Remus did. The secret had been transferred to him, and he'd agreed readily to retreat from the world in order to keep their refuge safe.

"I know," she said wearily, "I think, just for a little bit, it would be nice to…rest. The boys will want to keep going but – I think I will stay here for…just a little bit," she repeated. Remus nodded slowly, understandingly. Molly could always count on Remus to understand – he made it his business to offer quiet support. Yet she couldn't help herself, she pitied him. He was a man ruined; a constant reminder to everyone within the ranks of the Order of what could happen to each and every one of them.

She closed her eyes for one long moment, taking the chance to send her love to Arthur and Ginny, before standing and busying herself with cooking. The Order would arrive soon - no doubt Dumbledore had informed them shortly after the attack – and they would need food.

* * *

Harry lay on his back underneath the trees, inhaling the musty smell of earth and decaying leaves. Out here, with the signs of nature all around him, he was sure he would feel some stirring of emotion, a joy to be free, sorrow for his experiences, anger at his captors. Anything that would shake the stillness in his mind. 

_This isn't real_, he thought. It wasn't right to be so drained of feeling, as bare as a dried out lake bed. He didn't want to think about what had happened. Every time he contemplated the small, closed in space he'd stayed in stasis or the nausea as one of his captors raised their wands he felt a faint uprising of animal panic, but that didn't count for emotion, he rationalised. He was sure that if he could find the right place in his head, everything would be there, locked away, ready to come gushing out in a frenzied wave of magic and rage and destruction. He was unused to feeling so restrained.

Tonguing the raw patch on his tooth, he was reminded of Martin Croaker's spell. He'd need to take that molar out one day. He could feel which one it was, weighed as heavy in his jaw as if it were filled with lead.

_They'll be coming to find me,_ he informed himself matter-of-factly, and shivered despite the warm summer air. He needed to stay somewhere until he could master magic enough that he would not be found when he didn't want to be. Closing his eyes, he watched the shifting colours of light through his eyelids. All his hopes for the future lay in one small piece of paper. He'd read it over enough times that he could recall the slanted script and the creases in the parchment as clearly as if he were holding it in his hands. He would be a fool to go, and a fool not to, he decided.

Sitting up, Harry stretched aching muscles. He wouldn't fool himself that it couldn't possibly end up worse than the New Ministry, but he would know that it was unlikely to be. He'd taken a long, weary train ride away from it, and now he'd return.

_Number 5, Prairie Walk,_ he recited to himself. He tried to say it out loud, but his voice caught on the first syllable and petered out with a faint whistle of air.

Walking back towards the train station, he almost dared hope that he might get some of his questions answered.

* * *

The country lane was thin and quiet, overhung with trees that dappled the path with shade. From the look of the road surface it hadn't been repaired in years, and the cobbles laid down were cracked and worn. Harry surmised that this wasn't a place that visitors or even cars often passed. 

The journey had passed in a daze. He'd sat against the cool glass window of the train and absorbed the sun in sleepy pleasure. It was nice to simply be able to _be_, and pretend for a moment that everyone _wasn't_ after him. He'd watched Muggles come and go, getting on and off at various stations unaware of the conflict surrounding them. A family had sat down next to him and he'd lazily listened to their conversations, and everything had seemed so incredibly removed from himself that he could almost enjoy it. He found it strange that he could exist in such different worlds; the Wizarding world where he was a wanted criminal 'impostor', the Muggle world where he was similarly sort after, and then the peaceful feeling of anonymity. He found himself amazed by the surreal quality of being able to wander around unnoticed and watch people continue with their lives as if Britain wasn't currently being torn apart.

No. 5 was hidden away from the road behind the tall wall that ran parallel to the road. The wall itself was covered in creeping plants, trees looming from the other side, and when Harry finally reached the gate he had to force it open and out of the clinging fingers of the creepers. The entrance didn't open straight onto the building but wound tightly round on itself before emerging on the house and gardens.

The entire place had an air of mystery about it that he hadn't been in the right mind to notice on his last visit. The path wavered back and forth, curling and meandering, and from no one point in the garden could you see the rest because large hedges, trees and walls blocked it from view. The Devil's Snare that trailed over the nearby oak didn't escape his sight, and he hurried swiftly onwards, winding through the garden, absently taking in the various colours of the plants and the scents in the air. He thought there might be a herb garden somewhere near.

Reaching the house, he looked it over. It was large, but not overly so. The stones were a dark red brick, covered in more of the same creepers that had spread over the walls running through the garden and along the road, and the windows were wide and shuttered. Taking a bracing breath, he knocked tentatively on the door.

There was a long moment before it swung open and a diminutive house elf answered, looking up at him with saucer eyes.

"Mr. Potter sir!" it cried. The name took him by surprise, and Harry snarled involuntarily. It shrunk back, ears going flat. "D-Dippy will show you to the master, sir."

The entrance hall was small and sparse, but elegantly furnished, and as they progressed up the stairs and through a corridor, Harry could see that it was a running theme. They came to a door and Dippy gave a little bow before disappearing with a pop.

Harry paused, then pushed the door gently open.

The room he entered was a large study, with two ceiling high windows dominating the scene. The walls were lined with bookshelves, a desk on one side of the room and a fireplace complete with armchairs on the other.

"So you decided to take up my offer after all," said a soft voice from behind the desk. Harry's eyes narrowed and focused on the figure. "I cannot confess myself surprised." The man scratched something off with an air of finality, and raised his head to regard him. Harry remained in the doorway a moment before moving to stand in front of him, wand held loosely in his hand.

The man paused to regard him for a long moment, entwining his fingers where they rested on the surface of the desk. Harry caught a flash of a silver ring and dots began to connect.

"The New Ministry hasn't the faintest idea what to do with you," he remarked, "and I suppose you're wondering just what uses I could have for you when they come up with blanks. That's twice I've helped you now, and you've come to me for help again."

Harry held his gaze belligerently.

The man stood gracefully and made his way over to one of the shelves. Reaching over the books he withdrew a small bottle and a pair of glasses, setting them down on the small table before the hearth.

"I'm not so enamoured of listening to my own voice that I'll continue talking indefinitely you know, and I'm certainly not interested in having a lengthy conversation at my desk," the man said, fixing him with a pointed look.

Harry followed him slowly over and sank into one of the armchairs before the fire. The bottle that the man had picked up was filled with a fluorescent red liquid, a colour that he couldn't quite bring himself to trust. He left his glass where it rested on the table.

"One of the wonderful things about magic is that it allows us a far greater choice in foods and liquors than the Muggles," the man said, correctly interpreting his look.

"Your name." Harry's voice felt as if it were crumbling even as he spoke. Screaming had eroded it much, he mused with a faint twinge of amusement.

"Janus Larch." Harry perceived in his face some sardonic twist as he continued. "Satisfied Mr. Potter?"

Harry felt his face curl into something feral. "No," he rasped, "that's not my name, not anymore." Defiantly he yanked back his mop of hair to reveal the ugly slash that ran across his forehead where his scar used to lay. Larch remained unmoved.

"When the New Ministry has your face, they don't usually much care for scars." He sipped his drink thoughtfully.

Harry's expression soured, and he seemed to draw in on himself. He didn't want to think about the New Ministry. What he needed was answers, protection, help.

"I need somewhere to stay, away from them, the Muggles, and everyone else out to get me. Somewhere with no interference from people I don't know and don't want to meet." Harry mentally congratulated himself on his bluntness.

The man levelled him with a measuring stare, and despite his best intentions Harry shrunk back. He didn't _like_ this man. He knew that since he first met him in the Leaky Cauldron. He practically reeked of Dark magic in the same way that Lucius Malfoy did. However, at this point he was finally able to make the distinction between liking someone and needing them, and this was the only foothold he had on a sheer cliff.

"Consider it done," the man shrugged, breaking his gaze. Harry wondered if he had any experience in Leglimency. "This house is under Fidelius; if you do not leave the grounds then there will be no chance of them finding you."

Harry let out a breath as a little tension left his frame. He wasn't exactly relieved, but it was a start.

"Perhaps I should answer the more pertinent questions that you seem to be too distracted to ask," Larch continued blandly after several moments of silence. "I serve _only_ myself – in the great game I am at the moment merely a player to fill in the blanks. At this time it is of no interest to me to turn you in to any of the authorities or sides in this pathetic little show of muscle they still call a war. Until you're competent enough to fight without losing your wand to a simple disarming charm, they'll have to continue with their standstill. And for the final question…"

"What do you want from me in return for letting me stay?"

Larch smiled slowly. "You're quite the political piece on the chessboard, you understand. There are some things that can only happen with your co-operation. If you're interested, I'll be more than happy to teach you along the way, too."

Harry absorbed this at a snail's pace, forcing himself to scrutinise everything that had been said for any loopholes or pitfalls that he could end up in. He came to a realisation that there was rather a lot that could go wrong.

On the other hand, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"All right," he replied grudgingly. "Tell me what happened since I disappeared."

* * *

The Wizarding world learnt to call Harry Potter's disappearance from the Department of Mysteries the beginning of the war. Shortly following the incident, Voldemort was forced into the open during a battle with Albus Dumbledore, and by the time Fudge began to gather his forces it was too late. The Dark Lord systematically destroyed the Ministry from the inside out, eliminating all the pivotal figures that he could lay hands on. Of the few that survived were Amelia Bones, Cuthbert Mockridge and Amos Diggory, whilst others such as Arthur Weasley (a popular candidate for the next Minister) were killed in precisely executed raids. Fudge died in an attack to his home less than a month after the Dark Lord's re-emergence, and was acceded by Rufus Scrimgeour from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He worked closely with Amelia Bones, transforming the Ministry into a heavily guarded military base that was for a time considered impenetrable. 

However, a fall-out occurred between Bones and Albus Dumbledore over the new Minister's meddling with the Wizengamot, and this divided the battles occurring into several categories. The Order of the Phoenix chose to fight physical battles in guerrilla style against the Death Eaters in an attempt to counter their attacks, knowing that they did not have the manpower yet to be able to defy them on a larger scale, and struggled politically against the Ministry. In turn, the Ministry tangled on all levels with both sides, introducing routine security checks within its ranks in an attempt to discover Death Eaters, and engaged in numerous raids in order to flush out Dark wizards from the pureblood elite, after the capture of Lucius Malfoy had alerted them that it was indeed possible to put those with both power and wealth behind bars.

Scrimgeour passed laws imposing a curfew and swelled the ranks of the Aurors with well-placed suggestions through the media and those who owed him favours. Amelia was allowed to pass laws that she had been itching to for well over a decade, which ensured the loyalty of the head of the DMLE. The Wizengamot's power over the Ministry was severely reduced and good relations with Dumbledore severed when Scrimgeour located a loophole in one of the laws denoting their sway over the current Minister during times of conflict. By declaring a code Grim security level, he was able to pass another law that required only four votes from the Wizengamot, enabling him to further lessen the hold of the Wizengamot over Ministry affairs. Bones already held one vote herself, and he had the others bought and paid for. This meant that he could apply several more laws concerning security and the clearance of contraband items.

This caused a rift not only with the headmaster of Hogwarts but within the Ministry itself, originating from the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and headed by Arnold Peasgood. As a licensed Obliviator, it was speculated that he was in a good position to cover his political tracks and sway others to his side. The resulting power clash divided the Ministry staff, and through a well planned coup by a contingent of Aurors with grudges, Amelia Bones was ousted from her position of power in the DMLE and forced to flee with a small band of supporters from the Aurors and the destabilised Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour.

Arnold Peasgood's first act as Minister was to remove Albus Dumbledore from his position as headmaster of Hogwarts, and close the school. He had been largely unwilling to close Hogwarts, but it made too obvious a target, and any attacks there spread the resources of the Ministry even thinner. He had also seen well enough the power and respect that Dumbledore commanded as the headmaster, and he had disliked the idea of any one such figure influencing the younger generation enough to order the immediate sealing of the school.

For eleven years, no one had been able to access Hogwarts.

During the precarious transition from Rufus Scrimgeour's command to that of Arnold Peasgood, Voldemort led an attack to the Ministry, practically razing the first few levels before being driven back. This had provided Peasgood with the impetus to rebuild and re-christen it the New Ministry, devoting an entire department to its security. In each department a tiered structure was introduced, meaning that no one person would ever have complete access to vital information. Departments such as the control of magical beasts were completely liquidated, and the employees moved to others, such as the newly formed Department of Spell Creation, one of the core parts of the New Ministry. Many of the Unspeakables from the Department of Mysteries had been shifted there, whilst others whose expertise was a little darker had been moved to lower levels. The title 'Unspeakable' earned itself a new aura of fear from the public, as prisoners were dealt with harshly in Level Nine.

Meanwhile Bones and Scrimgeour rallied support from the Wizarding public and continued to aid and fight, although their forces and influence had been severely reduced. They survived, battered, through absolute secrecy. Their reputation was of a small but untraceable group of people, all dedicated to varying degrees. No one knew who belonged to them beyond those who had openly pledged their alliance before the split in the Ministry. Whilst the Order of the Phoenix grew in numbers and made bolder and bolder attacks, the Old Ministry adopted their guerrilla tactics, appearing and disappearing before they could be caught or destroyed.

Voldemort kept up a steady stream of Death Eater raids, and after a negotiation with the Dementors of Azkaban stormed the prison, freeing his followers and leaving the building in ruin. This also forced the transformation of a portion of each of the New Ministry levels into cells, and shortly afterwards, the formation of the Vindicators. Arnold Peasgood ordered the Daily Prophet to release the first criminal charts, and sent similar information into the Muggle world.

Seeing that the public needed reassurance, Peasgood renamed the Aurors with the title of Vindicators, intensively training a special task force of elite warriors, and reforming the lower classed fighters into able patrols. The Vindicators were given extra privileges in accordance to their class, and six years after Harry's disappearance the New Ministry passed laws authorising the use of the Killing Curse to from middle level Vindicators upwards.

Voldemort's minions recruited large numbers of witches and wizards from neighbouring countries, staging attacks in France, Germany, Spain and Bulgaria. He gained the support of both werewolves and a significant portion of the vampire clans, and through judicious use of the Imperius curse, took control of the Muggle world leaders in order to prevent them from interfering with his attacks on their British counterparts.

In a stroke of masterful retaliation, the Bones and Scrimgeour seized control of the Floo network, and attacked and gained possession of three of the four largest food producers in magical Britain. This caused prices to skyrocket and supplies to become severely limited until alternate methods of production came into play. However even though it gradually re-established, for several years afterwards food supply was erratic and sparse, even with many witches and wizard buying through the Muggle world. Many saw it as an opportunity to make vast sums of money through selling Muggle food at higher prices, and with the majority of wizards still leery enough of the Muggle world to consent to buying at inflated prices from their own kind, it worked. Not to be caught out by the developments, the New Ministry passed laws forbidding the purchase of food with intent to sell from the Muggle world without official sanction, and began their own food distribution, appropriating the money others had made in the same way through various fines and taxes, forcing the Muggle food distributors underground. Even then, supplies were poorly co-ordinated, many choosing instead to fall back on their Herbology skills to grow their own produce.

In the eighth year since Harry's disappearance, the New Ministry developed tags to track their prisoners, and the underground trade for their removal appeared a year later. For awhile they seemed ready to dominate the wizarding world, and the introduction of minor citizen tags was aired, only to be beaten back when their removal became illegally available. Shiftkeys, a modification of portkeys using a slower disappearance rate, were developed by the Death Eaters, and they used many of the spies that had taken years to infiltrate the New Ministry to free their fellows from the prisons and stage an attack. In response, stronger wards were created to prevent such a thing from occurring again.

On Christmas just before the ninth year, Diagon Alley was stormed in one of the bloodiest battles the Wizarding world had seen in centuries. All four sides fought, levelling the Wizarding hub and creating the largest number of casualties seen since the war began. Many witches and wizards fled the country, and the suicide rate upped dramatically. Realising that there was a need for new supporters in the Wizarding world, the New Ministry created delegations to discover and introduce Muggleborns to a safe environment where they would be able to learn spells and participate in their new world.

In the summer of the tenth year, a peace agreement was established between all factions, and the previously small Alchemic Alley was expanded to gigantic proportions. Spells and defences were layered so that no one who had not agreed to the non-violence conditions could enter. This allowed new hope for the Wizarding community, and shops sprung into life, blooming into thriving businesses. A similar agreement was arranged for popular wizarding towns such as Hogsmeade, and there was a mass relocation of wizarding folk to these 'safe' areas.

The price of this agreement was a transference of funds, a release of prisoners, and that St. Mungos was required to heal any and all patients to the best of its abilities, and no armed forces could enter the building or the area around it with the intent to harm or lay in wait for patients. This allowed all sides to cut down on losses, and soon after battles the hospital was flooded with the wounded from both the Dark and Light.

Peace, of a sort, descended on the Wizarding world.

The struggles became less open and bloody, and more towards behind-the-scenes manoeuvring. The New Ministry took this 'peace' as a chance to establish a firm grip over the Wizarding communities, and using scare-tactics sent the now greatly feared Vindicators through Alchemic Alley and other hotspots on frequent patrols. Although the non-violence clauses allowed for no fatalities to occur, the Vindicators were more than capable of removing offending citizens from the wizarding places and dealing with them outside. The Order remained very active, but the Old Ministry began to retreat and gather forces in the background.

In the twelfth year, the New Ministry began to experiment on their fighters. The Vindicators were required to go through several standard strengthening rituals before being elevated to a new class, and this allowed them to slip in a great number of control and loyalty spells. The result was hardened troops who were unerringly faithful as their skills increased up the classes. The lower classes were more likely to rebel, but far less likely to succeed.

And in the fourteenth year…Harry Potter returned.

* * *

Harry lay on his bed, staring unseeingly at the ceiling. It seemed to be a recurring theme with him in this house, and he could envision himself spending the next year doing the same thing each night as he tried to sleep. His conversation with Larch had lasted long into the evening, and by the end he had been reeling with the information he was told. All he knew was that so much had been lost, and yet the wizarding world remained in precarious balance. It had certainly given him a better idea of what each side was capable of, if not their particular philosophies. 

At that moment, each seemed as bad as each other.

Larch had told him that there were indeed public archives for the various newspapers, but that they were stringently controlled and surveyed by the New Ministry. Still, he held onto that tiny seed of hope in his mind that he was soon going to be given the chance to learn and fight enough to go and see for himself. He wanted to know that if he met any of the grunts for each side that he would be able to engage them in combat and win. _Or at least protect myself_, he thought. There was too much to take in all at once – it was a problem too big for him to comprehend all in one go.

Closing his eyes, he foolishly hoped that it would all be better when he woke up the next morning.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

'_Pain beyond pain,_ _nothing could have prepared me for it.'_ is a quote from The Goblet of Fire, spoken by Voldemort when he is having his little trip down memory lane about the night he was defeated. It seemed appropriate to rehash through Harry's mouth.

This chapter still needs a bit more editing till I'm completely happy with it, but I'll do that when I have a spare moment. Much thanks to the folks on DLP for their suggestions on how I could improve it.

Updates will be sporadic at best for the time being – I've got coursework to complete, and I really need to dedicate more time to my work than I have been doing. After January I should be able to get back into regular updates, but until them I've got exams and such to concentrate on.


	5. The Dawning of a New Day

**Chapter 5: The Dawning of a New Day**

Hermione awoke to find her arms empty. Blinking the sleep from her eyes in the dark room, she fumbled for her wand. Their trunks were at the foot of their bed where they had left them, but everything else was unchanged from the last time they had stayed here. Hermione's mood darkened as she remembered the raid that had lost them Mundungus Fletcher. She and Ron had stumbled back to Grimmauld Place, too dizzy to apparate in anything other than small jumps, and collapsed on this same bed waiting for Pomfrey to get round to seeing them. It had been a grim night.

A small spark of irritation rose in her chest as she heard voices from below, signalling the Order members gradually trickling into the house. Ron had left her to sleep while they discussed the important business downstairs, away from her, as if the Burrow hadn't become as much her home as it was his since she left Hogwarts. Pulling her hair roughly back from her face she secured it with one of the enchanted bands she kept around her wrist and stood to make the bed. It never hurt to have anti-flammable charms on your hair.

Despite the extensive cleaning that had gone on in Grimmauld Place, it still retained an air of dankness and gloominess. If it weren't for the already formidable protections on the house, she knew that they would have relocated long ago, but the ancestral home of the Blacks offered a large amount of space and a central position – the despair that surrounded the place was a small price to pay.

Stepping gently onto the stairs, she brushed down her robes and headed towards the kitchen, padding especially quietly past the portrait of Mrs. Black.

_All this time,_ she thought, _and we still haven't got rid of the old bat._

The sound of voices intensified towards the kitchen, and she easily slipped into the room to take her seat beside her husband. The kitchen had been enlarged as the Order ranks swelled, and even now it was pressed for space with the core members crushed up on the benches, eating the supper Molly had made. Hermione knew it calmed the older woman to lose herself in cooking, and she found herself secretly glad that she found some relief, because Hermione didn't have any comfort to share at that moment.

"Why didn't you wake me?" she asked the redhead quietly, helping herself to a bowl of soup and a piece of bread.

Ron turned to look at her, apologetic. "I…" he paused and then concentrated on mopping up the last of his soup with the bread. "I thought you could use the sleep."

Hermione remained silent. There was a shared uneasiness in the air that she could feel rising between them. She knew instinctively that that hadn't been the reason at all. He was trying to distance her from his family and their troubles so that he could use her as a sanctuary from them when it became too much to bear. He'd done it before, and he was doing it again. Almost an instinctive reaction, that didn't take into consideration the fact that by now she was as much a part of the family as any of them.

Instead she said, "Wake me next time, please," and Ron flushed a little.

_Caught out_, she thought.

"Sorry to hear about yer' home Weasley," Hestia remarked good-naturedly around a mouthful of food. Ron nodded soberly, but the cheerful witch pulled him into conversation with an ease that Hermione envied. To her left were a group of younger members who had only recently been inducted, having a fierce debate over the standard of potions ingredients since the peace treaties. Hermione tuned them out – she didn't know them, and felt no particular obligation to strike up a discussion over such a dull topic.

_Its always been this way, hasn't it?_, she found herself thinking, _that we still need to shout to hold a conversation over dinner._

"All right 'Mione?" asked a voice from behind her, and then a young man had pushed his way into the seat next to her, setting his plate down and stabbing a piece of bread with his fork. Hermione sighed. As if her day couldn't get any worse.

Since Harry's disappearance, Colin Creevey had taken more of a shine to her than she would have liked. Although he'd ditched his ideas of becoming a well-known photojournalist, he had perpetuated in his obsession for all things Harry; that, unfortunately, included Hermione. The enthusiastic blonde had followed her around Headquarters like a lost puppy his first week in the Order, and still sat next to her at whatever opportunity presented itself. It drove her mad.

"Colin," she began succinctly, "no matter how many times you call me that, it doesn't make me like the name any more."

"Oh." He paused, flustered. "Sorry Hermione. It's just habit, you know? It's rather catchy."

Hermione turned deliberately back to her food.

"I heard what happened at the Burrow," he admitted, "I'm sorry. I know that place was your like your own home after…"

She grimaced painfully. "Thank you Colin," she snapped out. "But I'm not in the mood."

"Sorry," he said again. There was a brief moment of silence where she counted down the time it would take for his voice to burst out of him again, like thunder after lightening. "The raids went really well today. We caught Dolohov with a curse that'll keep him off his feet for at least a week!"

Hermione let his voice wash over her, concentrating as best she could on other things. She didn't know why the boy was so interested in her, nor did she want to after all…

"'Mione?"

She realised he had asked her a question and shook her head. "Sorry, I'm a little distracted, is all."

Colin nodded understandingly. "Of course. We all lost people, and the Burrow must have brought that back." Hermione just wished he'd stop bringing it up, until she could almost see their faces before her, thinking that if she turned around they'd be standing just a few feet away.

"I've heard that Dumbledore is going to assign some of us to a special task, very hush hush," Colin said, delicately spooning some of the soup into his mouth. "Maybe it'll be the plan that finally…you know…defeats Him."

"Perhaps."

Secretly, Hermione wondered about Albus. After all this time working for and with him, she couldn't be sure that he wasn't just as bad as the rest of them. Hell, with fourteen years of fighting, she was beginning to think that it would have been just as bad under the Dark Lord's service. Albus was kind and comforting, but he played them all like puppets. She knew he did. Ron knew he did. She suspected that they all did to some extent, and understood that that was one of the unavoidable pitfalls of leadership. One had to have a certain arrogance to think that your opinion was enough to make people follow you, and once you had that arrogance you began to think that you knew best. You didn't just wake up one day and realise that you were hailed as the leader of the Light and destined to lead everyone to greatness. It was gradual.

She certainly felt that her strings had been pulled.

Dinner finished all too slowly, drawn out by Colin's chatter. At least Dennis wasn't there. The pair of them were brilliant in duels, but in conversation they wore you out like nothing else she knew.

"Tired of dealing with your little lover-boy?" Ron breathed into her ear, and Hermione felt herself blush. Colin paused and flushed, looking away. He liked her a little too much, she thought, a fact that Ron never failed to tease her about. Loudly.

Moving over to reply, she was stopped as a hush fell over the room. People began to sit down, and from behind the crowds Albus was revealed, standing in the doorway. There was something reassuring in the fact that he hadn't abandoned his outrageously colourful robes, even when they made him stand out like a fluorescent marker against the drab interior.

"Friends," he said softly, letting the sound echo over the room, "I hope you have all eaten your fill?" There was a wave of nods and murmurs. "Then we will proceed onto the meeting."

Those standing shuffled to seats or conjured themselves chairs, and as one the group leaned forwards, waiting to see what he would have to say. Hermione caught herself doing it and gave another little shake of her head. She couldn't let herself fall into these patterns of behaviour! It bothered her more than a little when she found herself following the crowd without thinking; it was a sign of lack of personal awareness, and she was determined to weed all the automatic responses out. It was her own, personal mission.

"We gather for the one thousand, seven hundred and thirteenth meeting of the Order of the Phoenix," Albus proclaimed formally, and Hermione shivered as she felt a soft press of magic run over her.

She deeply admired the former headmaster, no doubt about it. The work that must have gone into that spell was great. With each proclamation at the beginning of the meeting, all those listening unknowingly committed themselves to not betraying anything they discovered during. The only reason she had even noticed it in the first place was the brush of magic as it passed her and the fact that she had read up on those type of 'self-administered' spells when she was preparing the jinx for the DA in her fifth year. From then on it had only taken a few mental leaps to put the clues together and figure out what he was doing.

"Firstly, we have reason to believe that the individual impersonating Harry Potter has escaped from the New Ministry." Dumbledore waited for the excited muttering to die down, and Hermione sighed. "Our contact within the walls was able to overhear a conversation involving the prisoner, and discovered that it is in fact the second time that he has been held captive. As our contact cannot gather information on the impostor without compromising the delicate position they are in, it is in our interests to track him down ourselves." He paused, eyes roaming over those assembled before fixing on a few faces. "Emmeline, would you be so kind as to lead the search?" the elderly woman nodded sharply. "Where are the Creevey brothers? Ah, there you are. The two of you would be ideally suited to this, if you have no objections?" Beside her, Colin shook his head. "Good. Be prepared to venture into the Muggle world. Now, onto our second issue. Miss Thomas has recently brought word that the vampire clans in Transylvannia are forming a tentative alliance…"

Hermione kept one ear on the conversation, turning her mind to other things. The spells she had been working on were near completion, she could feel it. The research into the New Ministry tags had yielded particularly promising results, and if she were able to achieve the last section in imitating the New Ministry magic then they could very well soon be receiving standard signals from all of those that had been tagged. Not only would this help them in a rescue attempt, but it would allow them to keep track of where the tagged targets were. Some low ranked Death Eaters would go on attacks with tags still embedded without knowing it, and it could be a valuable resource.

If, that was, she could figure out what method the spell used to relay a signal.

The meeting ended swiftly, but she was intercepted by Albus as she stood to leave.

"Hermione, please stay a little longer if you would."

Frowning, she sat back down at the now vacant bench, waving Ron to go ahead and not wait for her. Some Order members still dallied, hoping to pick up the 'juicy news', but the ex-headmaster erected a privacy spell around them with a disapproving look over the top of his glasses levelled at the stragglers. Cowed, they quickly made their way out.

"How is your research progressing?" he inquired mildly, popping a lemon drop into his mouth from one of the many pockets in his robes.

Hermione sighed and reached a hand up to push a strand of hair out of her face. "Well enough, I suppose. The new shield is about as effective as it's going to get and Miriam is going to begin testing tomorrow, the Shiftkey wards are about part way there – we just need to specialise – but the final part of the redirection of the New Ministry tags if giving me real grief."

Albus nodded solemnly, and she could hear a crunch as he chewed the sweet. "I have absolute faith in you to find a way." He paused, looking distantly over the table. "All spells must come into creation at some point, and some witches and wizards merely have a gift in that respect. As I have told you before, I believe that you have that gift." His expression grew grave. "Even spells such as the Unforgiveables have been created at some point, though it was a dark mind that conceived of such things."

Hermione swallowed slightly, and sat up stiffly. She didn't like the direction that this was going in.

"I am afraid that I must ask you to perform a very grave task." Albus face seemed weary, blue eyes not crinkled in their usual smile lines. "Please meet me in my office as soon as possible, and I will try to be brief. I do not wish to keep you from your family at this time, and it is with a heavy heart that I place this burden on you so shortly after the loss of your home."

Hermione nodded once, slowly. Things were about to become complicated, she knew.

* * *

"What?" Hermione whispered, still staring at Albus with a stricken look on her face.

"Please think this over carefully Hermione," he said, placating. "I trust you to look beyond your initial reaction and regard this idea with all the calm logic that I know you possess."

She opened her mouth, and then shut it again, clenching the muscles in her jaw. "I'm sorry Albus. I couldn't…couldn't possibly…"

He leant across the desk, his expression the most serious she had ever seen on him. Cool blue eyes met her own. "I do not ask this of your lightly my dear, nor without forethought. I have spoken to all of my old staff, including Minerva and Moody. We discussed it at great length. This war has taken much from all of us…"

Hermione swallowed the painful lump that rose in her throat. She wouldn't cry, not when he was using such an underhanded blow. But her heart ached…

"I can't," she repeated, voice barely above a whisper. "When I enrolled to learn I never…_never_ wanted to work with anything like this."

"Please," Albus pressed, "I will not beg for this, but since Harry's disappearance it is the only spell that will have the merest possibility of working. The war will _not_ end while Voldemort remains alive and free, and he is too powerful to cage."

Hermione shook her head mutely, and to her shame she felt hot tears roll down her cheeks. This hadn't been what she wanted, not at all. "I don't even know if I'll be able to," she said quietly. Albus leaned back into his chair, resting one weathered hand over hers in comfort.

"Give it thought, at the very least. If you choose not to, then I extend the offer to Obliviate the memory, and it will be as if we never had this conversation. Minerva and the others have agreed to the same thing."

Hermione looked up at him with wide eyes. "They agreed to be Obliviated?"

Albus nodded gravely. "The idea is nearly too grave to be considered, and we would not like to spur others towards similar projects."

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to repress the tears, and then raised one hand to wipe them away. She wouldn't let Ron see her like this. Finally she stood, drawing her hand away from his and heading towards what had once been the old Floo.

"If I refuse…" she paused, and took a bracing breath to steady her voice. "If I refuse then you are free to remove the memory."

Albus' eyes widened, and then he smiled faintly. "Thank you Hermione."

* * *

Breakfast was a quiet affair; the pair of them seated in the garden. Harry had woken early, his bedcovers soaked with sweat and still shivering. He hadn't gone back to sleep. Instead he'd padded gently out of his room and following the resident house elf's advice, into the garden. He'd been up early enough to see the sun rise.

At some point, when it had progressed from darkness to the dull blue light of early morning, he had realised that he wasn't alone. Larch stood some distance away, moving through similar poses that he had seen people doing in the parks near where he lived. Dredging the name from his memory, he mouthed 'Tai Chi'. There was something calming about watching the fluid movements, particularly in someone who seemed to have practised them long enough for them to become second nature. The man moved with sinuous grace from one pose to another without pause, gradually speeding up, the dance-like movements changing from peaceful to deadly. Harry watched him perform a series of kicks and punches, a twist he thought might be to topple the opponent to the floor, and a spinning drop to the ground that put him almost completely flat before he was up and moving again.

Then the practice shifted once again, and after several minutes Harry realised that they must be the motions for duelling. He didn't recognise any of the hand gestures, but he realised that he would have to think hard just to be able to recognise an Expelliarmus. The only one he knew that he would recognise without forethought was the Cruciatus. He shivered in the morning air, the hairs on the back of his neck rising and prickling unpleasantly. He didn't want to think about that, not so soon.

It was only when the man finally stopped, reaching up to the knot at the back of his head that he realised that he had been blindfolded. It all seemed vaguely impressive to him, not to mention worrying. If he'd had any doubts before, he was now sure that the man he was living with could kill him in a few seconds, without even a wand.

Larch ran a hand through his hair, shaking it out, and tucked the blindfold into a shirt pocket. Harry noticed that unlike the rather formal clothes he had been wearing previously, he was dressed in a simple cotton shirt and trousers. He'd been passed by with barely a nod, but half an hour later he returned dressed as he had been the previous day and offered him breakfast.

And there they were.

Harry had almost asked what the exercises were for, before stopping himself. He'd already figured that one out, so why repeat it? Still deep in thought he ate his breakfast of fruit and cereal and stared pensively across the garden at the gradually lightening sky.

"You mentioned that you were overloading spells," his host commented between mouthfuls. Harry nodded. "We'll work on that today, and see where you are in the core subjects. Do you know how to apparate?"

Harry shook his head.

"Then we'll cover that too. It shouldn't take you too long to master Apparition, all it requires is focus and intent – just like most spells." Larch paused and looked over the table at him. "Tell me where you've reached in your Transfiguration course."

The silence broken, Harry told him in stilted words just where he was up to in his studies. Larch questioned him intensively, quizzing him on the theories behind certain spells rather than asking which he could and couldn't do. When he mentioned that he hadn't done Arithmancy, his host looked almost alarmed, but promised to cover the basics of that too. Harry couldn't exactly say he was thrilled, but he was getting what he wanted with no sign of what he had to pay for all this yet. He wasn't stupid. He didn't relax when Larch made no more mention of the price his teaching would require.

"How much have you studied Multi-substance transfiguration?"

Harry frowned. "We only started recently…"

Larch hummed and tapped his glass with the end of his wand. "Up to three substances I presume?"

Harry nodded. "I found it difficult."

Larch leaned back with an unreadable expression. "You cannot master Transfiguration if you are unable to progress beyond three forms. Five is standard for competence, but a Master should be able to manage fifty or more."

Harry tried not to let his eyes bug out. Fifty or more substances from one in a single transfiguration seemed incomprehensible. McGonagall hadn't mentioned anything like this.

"Where are you in Charms?"

Harry shook himself from his daze and tried to remember. He could recall Flitwick saying something about hot and cold… "The Elemental Bodies I think."

Larch nodded thoughtfully. "Just the basic spells operating with each Element, or Inter-Elemental Charms?"

"Just one Element." Harry felt more than a little left behind. He hadn't even known what some of the things Larch was talking about meant.

"I won't ask about Defence Against the Dark Arts. The reputation of the post still retains its notoriety even today, and your woeful Potions skills are common knowledge to all Hogwarts graduates. We will progress on those separately. Herbology?"

"I'm all right sir," Harry replied. The word 'sir' had been on his lips since the man had begun to speak in such a familiar 'teacher mode'. "I can work with most common plants."

Larch seemed unconvinced. "Herbology and Potions are intimately entwined, and you will find that knowledge of one will improve your understanding of the other." He paused and rested his head on one hand, regarding him thoughtfully. "Well, at least you have some potential, if a woeful lack of knowledge. When we have covered enough theory in Defence Against the Dark Arts, we will begin on the Dark Arts themselves."

Harry opened his mouth to protest, and then shut it again. Did he really want to refuse the knowledge it would bring? He was smart enough to see that he couldn't possibly master one without the other, and he had a fire in his blood that roused itself whenever he thought of Ginny and Neville. When he found their attackers he wouldn't want to be stuck with only Bludgeoning Curses.

"What about Occlumency and Leglimency?" Harry asked quietly, mind straying unpleasantly to Voldemort's dreams.

Larch looked at him sceptically. "Taking on a little much now aren't we? It's not worth hamstringing the rest of your learning by taking on more than you can handle."

"And Chanting?" Harry pressed, dredging the name up from his first and only conversation with Croaker.

Larch frowned. "I won't ask where you found out about those. Their reactions are useful in particular situations, but their effects are small to non-existent, and the effort you'll expend learning about them is not worth your time at the moment." He paused thoughtfully. "I don't claim to be a master in them. When you want to learn, you will need to find your own teacher."

With a flick of his wand, he summoned a large tome from the house and passed it with a dusty 'thump' over to Harry. "Read the first five chapters and be prepared to demonstrate what you have learnt. I expect you to have working knowledge of this by lunchtime."

Larch picked up his teacup and departed shortly afterwards, leaving a somewhat flabbergasted Harry. Shrugging slightly, he opened the book and found that chapter five was a lengthy way in indeed. Still munching on the fruit, he began to read.

* * *

At lunchtime, Harry got his first look at the dining room. It was a large space that contained little more than the long table and chairs, and in his mind he could easily see its potential as a duelling hall. Apparently it was going to be used for just that. With a few flicks of his wand, Larch shrunk the furniture and moved it over to one side of the room, before layering several complex shields around them.

The book he'd been provided with had been dull and dry, but just like when he'd done his own independent studies, Harry had focused on the necessity of it. The chapters he'd read had meticulously detailed channelling magic and focusing on the outputs, along with lots of other complex theories and examples pertaining to particular spells or branches of magic. He wasn't sure he'd be able to actually put any of it into practice first try, but it was a lot more helpful than the sparse information at the beginning of his sixth year Transfiguration text book. It had gone over Mehler's Law of Power once more, as well as dipping into the full version of his equations, which made him realise first of all that the one they had used in class was both simple and inaccurate, and second that he would need to know a lot more Arithmancy to even begin to comprehend what the scholar had been talking about.

Larch hummed a tuneless note and turned to him with an expectant look on his face. Harry raised his wand and then paused.

"Is there a particular spell I should try?"

"A simple one, but not Lumos." Larch grimaced eloquently. "I'd appreciate still being able to see after we finish."

Nodding, Harry performed a spell to produce small sparks.

It took them some time to work through the problem. Harry initially overloaded the spell so much that nothing but a faint sizzle came from his wand, although his hair stood on end as if it were charged with electricity, and he could feel his skin prickling with the wave of raw magic emitted. He tried again, focusing on the feeling of casting, the way the wand sat in his hand and the almost imperceptible tug he could feel in his blood as he cast. The book had explained that one of the only ways to feel this 'pull' was if you overloaded spells to the extent that the spell net was destroyed, and went on to discuss at great length the reasons why one shouldn't destroy spell nets, citing an eternally barren patch of land in the Highlands of Scotland as an example of what could happen if you went wrong. Harry had only just started to learn about spell nets as part of the theory in Transfiguration and Charms, but he knew enough to know that if you exceeded the maximum power level and shredded the matrix then the spell would be rendered ineffective.

Roughly ten minutes of casting later, he managed to produce a set of sparks so bright that they burnt, and left little charred holes in the floor where they fell. Sighing a little, he persevered, although his real breakthrough didn't occur until at least fifteen minutes later, when he experienced what the book called 'Pre-emptive Control'. As he moved the wand through the motions he felt an instinctive building of power in the tip. He was so shocked that he almost dropped his wand. However, a scant five minutes after he was able to cast it correctly, and had soon moved on to more complex spells.

He was in the middle of performing a Silencing charm when he had a thought.

"Spells like the Patronus charm…how do they work if you overcharge them?"

"The Patronus charm is a special case," Larch replied in that same level voice that Harry was slowly becoming accustomed to. He wondered whether he would be around long enough to see him raise it, and just as swiftly hoped he wasn't. "It's the strength of the memory that determines the amount of power that goes into the spell, and because the spell is based so intimately around the memory there is no way of thwarting it to boost the power."

Harry took a moment to process this before nodding. It made sense. If it was a spell designed to work off a happy memory, then you needed a good memory, not a whole lot of magic to perform it with.

_This is almost Patronus worthy_, Harry thought to himself as he performed a conjuration. He was extremely glad to be able to cast spells again, and it broke through the drained feeling that had been following him around. It was as if a restriction had been lifted off him, and he playfully made his conjured sparrows wheel around the room before dispelling them. His new wand was performing beautifully.

They ate lunch in silence; both seemingly wrapped up in their own thoughts. Harry couldn't help but keep thinking of how much he would be able to do now that he had his sorely missed spell-casting abilities back. In a darker portion of his mind, he allowed himself the possibility that revenge was closer than he had thought it might be, but that was quickly pushed away again. He wasn't quite ready to face the idea of killing someone in anything other than vague ideas.

What followed lunch was a brief rundown of the basics in each subject. To his dismay, Harry realised that he had forgotten much crucial information and more than once his wand movements and grip were corrected by his dubious host. He guessed that this was the benefit of one-on-one teaching rather than as a class.

"Lighter grip," Larch noted with approval, eyeing his wand movements critically.

Larch seemed once again to be concentrating more on theory than actual spells, and Harry tried to recall his lessons as best he could. He went through the motions for well over an hour before his teacher seemed satisfied.

Larch eyed him sharply and disabled the shielding charms around them before pocketing his wand again. "I will not be leading you through this holding your hand," he began. "Your studies are your own, and I have many more important things to undertake. I will provide you with books and the appropriate chapters, and there is a library for your use. Should you fail to understand something, reread it, and if you fail yet again, come to see me. In the evenings after dinner I will be working in the Potions lab – ask Dippy to show you there if you wish to observe - and I have informed her that she is to wake and instruct you on the proper care of magical plants in the morning before breakfast." The dark haired man paused and regarded him thoughtfully. "When you have finished the seventh year course, then I will be happy to begin to teach you in earnest. Until then, you are on your own. It's nothing you shouldn't be able to handle."

To say that Harry was a little disconcerted by the abrupt delivery of that statement was quite correct. He nodded hesitantly, feeling a sense of dread overcome him. He imagined endless days and nights stuck in the house with this man, stilted attempts at conversation over meals and uncomfortable, unwanted meetings in the hallway.

On the other hand, he didn't particularly want to speak with him more than was necessary anyway, and wondered why he was even allowing himself to dread what shouldn't bother him.

The Apparition lesson was brief, and not as challenging as he'd thought it would be. They stepped into the garden before dinner, and Larch instructed Harry on how to focus his will into appearing in a new place in a…novel way. Harry could still feel where the stinging charms had impacted with his arms and chest. Initially it had just infuriated him, dashing his concentration to pieces whenever he attempted to focus on Apparating, but his frustration transmuted to a desperate desire to _just get it over with_. He'd apparated with a loud crack a few feet to the side after a particularly fervent wish to be out of the way of the on-coming charm, and after a couple more tries he'd adjusted to the feeling of his insides being squeezed out like toothpaste through a tube enough to apparate without the 'creative' impetus.

However, Harry did realise soon enough in the following days that he was terribly isolated. He had become used to being solitary, he accepted that part of it easily, but he missed the quiet reassurance that Nicola offered even more than when he had been in the darkness of the New Ministry building. There he'd been able to think of little other than pain. He'd known when he was living in his little room in Croydon that she was but a phone call away, and he spent most of his evenings talking to her in the pub. He was missing that here, and there wasn't even the wrenching pain of curses to distract him from the gaping hole where his friends had once been.

Larch spent the majority of the days in the study or out of the house on some business that only he knew of, whilst Harry sequestered himself away in the library with his studies. If he worked, he didn't have to think. If he worked then he could ignore the ache in his heart. If he worked then he could justify the burn in his blood that demanded revenge on the abstract forms of his friends' murderers and his own torturers. There was a well-constructed ward over the Dark Arts section in the library, but that didn't stop him from trying, and failing that, finding inventive ways to use less harmful spells.

_Desperation is the mother of innovation_, he thought to himself. There were ways of hurting someone just as effectively with your everyday spells. He liked to compare it to making a bomb out of only simple household products. It was possible, if only you knew enough to try. Nobody could fault him for using Light spells that way either.

Harry found that by going over the theory once more he was progressing in leaps and bounds, particularly in Transfiguration. Simply by paying attention to the way things worked and spending time practising, he was able to perform spells that before he would have struggled even to pronounce the incantations. He suddenly realised just why Hermione had been miles ahead both himself and Ron in school, even when Ron had come from a wizarding family where all this was supposedly common knowledge.

He'd quickly mastered the element of fire in his Charms work, and could successfully manipulate several different varieties of flame, although the higher powered ones still eluded him. He'd found a set of the most difficult during his research, that reputedly only Charms Masters specialising in particular elements could effectively use and manipulate. The type of fire that melted rock and metal, and could eat through the oxygen in a room within seconds. It certainly appealed to his sense of the dramatic.

The problem he was currently tackling at the back of the maze-like library was the transfiguration of a single substance object into that of multiple substances. With revision of the material, he'd mastered up to seven, but he was struggling to perform ten. Before him he'd laid a ribbon, and across several sheets of parchment were his calculations for transforming it in a seamless single motion into ten different substances.

"Decem Transformo," he murmured, putting his wand through the appropriate motions. He could feel the magic waiting, shaping to his command but…failing. With a flick of his wand he reversed it back to its previous form, removing the metallic sheen. Frowning, he looked over his sketches and calculations. The rough lines revealed the wand movements, mimicking the progression of change he wanted to take place, and he trailed them gently with the tip of his finger.

The spells and wand movements he was using were standard for the level of transformation; rather, it was the intent that had to shape the spell into its unique form. The incantation and motions merely provided a vague guideline for the type and pattern of change that would take place. However, he still needed to work out the specifics for how he wanted it to happen, and that was what the scribbles covering the desk were for.

In attempting to perform the five-substance transfiguration, Harry had realised that he wasn't going to get much further without learning a little more Arithmancy. He remembered that it was recommended when doing NEWT level Transfigurations, but it wasn't entirely necessary as the NEWT course didn't cover anything that couldn't be struggled through with only the barest sums, and McGonagall covered those in her theory.

Brushing his notes to the side with a sigh, he stood to select a volume from the shelf and began painstakingly revising his plans.

* * *

In the weeks that followed his arrival at No. 5 Prairie Walk Harry made a study of Janus Larch. As he worked with Dippy in the greenhouses, he surreptitiously watched him do his routine of Tai Chi, fighting and duelling through the glass. When he was in the library, he made note of the books the man was reading. As they sat at meals he would absorb all he could of his mannerisms. As he watched him work over a potion in the evening, he took in the skill and practice with which he added, chopped, diced, stirred, measured, poured.

'Know thy enemy' didn't _quite_ count in this case, but it was as good as any.

Things he couldn't understand, he looked up in books. The silver ring showing a skull that sat on his right hand, middle finger, was a _memento mori_ in the flesh, as it were. He didn't know the enchantments on it or the entire significance of the symbol, but he knew from a book on pureblood customs that it was a traditional sign of a man who had dealt with death – it denoted respect, in a morbid way. The phrase that was carved down the doorjambs before his bedroom in the loft read 'As January remains a winter month', 'the Larch must shed its leaves before spring returns' in runic symbols that had taken Harry an age to decode.

He had a penchant for fluorescent colours in drinks. One night Harry had descended to the kitchens for a glass of water only to find him sitting on the top of the rough wooden table devouring a whole, raw fish and sipping a luridly green drink he thought might be absinthe. He'd backed quietly out of the room, trying to merge the cultured, aristocratic man he saw in the day with the one who had just taken a bite through scales and guts.

The parts of the house that he could access had no personal effects, merely a few trinkets that he knew could be picked up from travels, and the necessary furniture. In none of the history books available could he find any mention of a 'Larch' family, and Harry came to assume that it was either a pseudonym or the name of a Muggleborn.

In between, Harry read. He consumed Arithmancy books as fast as he was able, delved into the Art of Concealment, completed the chapters assigned to him and spent his days casting spells. He could almost say that he would be able to rival Hermione in his knowledge of spells in the short time that he had been learning, but there was no way he would be able to best her in background knowledge. Without any distractions, he read more than he had ever read before.

Well, there had been some distractions.

He'd found a very interesting book in his trawl through the library, labelled 'The Art of Love: Aphrodite's Ensnarement', one which made him blush from his head to his toes the first time he'd opened it. As much as he tried to rationalise that what the text read was actually very interesting and worthwhile, he eventually had to admit that he was simply a hormonal teenage boy with needs and interests that stretched a bit beyond spending his time weeding in the greenhouses or practising Elemental charms. He supposed he might learn something from it eventually, but at the moment he was more preoccupied by the…intriguing drawings.

Besides, it gave him something else to take up his time than the nightmares.

Harry thrashed in his sheets, tangled, before sitting up. He noticed that it was still dark outside - dark enough that he couldn't get a feel for the time at all. Grabbing his wand from beside his bed, he swung his legs onto the cold wooden floor. The remnants of the nightmare seemed to cling to him as he moved away from his bed, panting slightly.

"Point me Larch," he whispered, and his wand swung on his palm until it was standing vertically. It was very early then.

Grabbing it out of the air, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stepped out of the door. He had planned on jogging round the garden in the early morning, hoping that it would drive out both the nightmares and the restlessness that seemed to close in on him by having such a defined perimeter. It was all fine being locked away in Hogwarts – there was no chance of him becoming stir-crazy with all the space, but here…it was spacious, but not _that_ spacious. Larch could leave whenever he felt like it, so coming back to his home would be like returning to a sanctuary. For Harry, all he yearned to do was go jogging back down that country lane and run until his legs wouldn't carry him any longer. The New Ministry had made him truly appreciate being able to stretch his legs and know he could just walk and walk wherever he pleased. The temptation was so strong now, even though he knew the potential dangers, knew how foolhardy it would be to leave.

He wondered exactly when he'd become so conscious of his confines, and what it said about him that his fears had extended from the sound of his mother's dying protests caused by Dementors to encompass enclosed spaces.

Exhaling, Harry saw his breath cloud before him as his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the garden. It wasn't absolute, for it was a clear night, and the stars were still shining brightly above. He could almost see the path winding invitingly before him between the imposing hedgerows and bushes to finally emerge onto the little country lane. For a moment he shifted from foot to foot, putting off the inevitable, bracing himself, trying to remember all the reasons why he shouldn't, and then he started down it with an exhilarating purpose, heart thumping against his ribs. After two weeks trapped in the house, he finally felt like himself again. He could almost imagine that he was under his Invisibility Cloak, padding quietly down the Hogwarts halls after dark. There was the same element of danger, but here it was just one step closer. If he were caught, it wouldn't be by a teacher, and he most certainly wouldn't be let off with just a detention.

With a soft sigh, he paused by the gate to cast a surreptitious glance towards the house before leaving the garden. Larch hadn't forbidden him to leave, nor made any motion to – in fact, he seemed to have very little interest in Harry's activities at all. Still, he couldn't suppress the slight nervousness ingrained by years of adults setting him rules to follow. There was a slight tingle that ran up his spine, and Harry wondered whether it was the Fidelius charm passing over him or just his nerves. The country lane certainly looked more threatening at night; all heavy shadows that could hide foes, friends...there was a sense of _potential._ He could feel dirt under his shoes, taste the chill in the air.

"_Wonderful,"_ Harry breathed, and turned his head up to admire the stars, simply because he could. Repressing a panicky laugh, he stepped out into the middle of the cobbled street and span in a circle to prove to himself that he wasn't afraid.

That he was _alive._

Harry could feel something in himself that was different, as if it had been released. He was a light as air, as euphoric as a Hinkypunk under the multiple cheering charms. He did laugh then, and it rang across the street, echoing with a tinny sound. Outside, he felt as if his shackles had been released. He had a wand. He had the spells he'd already learnt in the weeks. Why not just take off, visit France, or Germany or…or India? The idea sent a little thrill of pleasure through him. India seemed like the stuff out of fairytales, why, he'd never even left Britain with the Dursleys! Now he was free of them, a voice seemed to whisper, now he was free…what was tying him to this country, this _war_ at all? He was sure that he knew, once, but he didn't anymore. Didn't want to think of it.

With a smile that he couldn't displace, he began to walk in the opposite direction from the station, following the lane as it narrowed, as the path crumbled, one wall falling into the distance and then the next, until he was walking up a gentle slope that curved round the hillside. He had to catch his breath as he glanced out over where the fields fell below, realising just how far he'd come. The tiny lights of the town were almost hidden by the hills, but he could just make out a few specks of light. He wondered if in daylight he would be able to see the roads and railway tracks stretching into the distance.

Harry kept on going, up and up and round and round until he wasn't facing the town at all anymore, and the view wasn't quite as spectacular. It didn't look out over the valley but instead he was surrounded by hills and out of breath. With a sigh, he flopped backwards onto the tough grass that lined the path and looked up at the little glowing lights in the sky. He'd had the stars quite bright where he was in Surrey, and in Hogwarts they were spectacular to look at, but these had quite their own charm. He caught himself looking at the Dog Star with a wave of sadness, and pointed a finger straight to it, arm wavering in his vision.

"I hope you didn't get your fool self hurt in the Ministry Sirius," he whispered. "Not for me."

Around him there was the soft lull of the breeze through the grass, and insects, and every so often sounds that made him start with a jolt of fear, because they sounded like footsteps. He tried to relax against the prickle of the plants around him, but something in him couldn't. He was free, but he didn't think he would be able to feel calm when he was so exposed.

He thought of the past two weeks and all he'd learnt.

He thought of the cloying closeness of his stasis cell in the New Ministry.

He thought of his comfortable little Muggle room with the battered old mattress and cracked ceiling, and job down the pub.

He thought even further than that, to the world that seemed so alien to him now, and yet so painfully like home. Of Ron and Hermione and adventures and Dumbledore and his lemon drops…

Harry drifted, eyes slipping shut of their own volition. He realised that he was falling asleep and couldn't bring himself to care.

* * *

**  
Author's Notes**:

Larch – There's always a struggle with OCs to make them realistic, but with still enough quirks to have character. Larch does fit in intricately to the plot line, and will be important as the story progresses, but I'll try and make sure that he stays realistic. He won't be overpowered, super cool, or someone who pauses in the middle of a battle to make witty and ridiculous banter before doing a double back flip to avoid the oncoming AK. He won't be taking the spotlight from Harry either. Martial arts won't feature heavily in this, but Larch and others have realised that being unarmed without any recourse is stupid, and so will Harry.

Magic – There'll be quite a few abrupt deviations from canon magic in this including, as you'll have noticed, that characters can now 'feel' magic. It won't be overt unless spells are overpowered, and even then it'll be specific to the caster. More like a gut feeling. The story will also feature 'magical exhaustion', though again, not overtly. It exists as a counterbalance for overpowering spells, so that characters can, but it'll bleed them dry in a duel very quickly as a result.


	6. Excursions

**Chapter Six: Excursions**

"Generally someone who is as sought after as yourself would take the time to make at least a token gesture at disguise."

Harry moaned blearily and rolled over onto his side. His mind was filled with a pleasant haze of shapes and colours that he just knew would resolve themselves into some glorious dream, if only the voice would stop distracting him. The harsh rub of grass against his cheek was irritating, but it faded into the distance as he fell deeper and deeper into soft slumber.

"Not to mention being more aware of their surroundings. The heath above my house is hardly the place for late night strolls."

As he breathed out he let a sound cross his lips that he hoped would convey his distress and irritation. Slowly, the realisation that he had been alone when he went to sleep, and that someone was now talking to him pierced his brain.

"Fuck," he mumbled, and was dimly aware that it wasn't quite as manly and forceful as he would have liked. More of a disorientated whimper really.

"Precisely." His companion shifted, and there was a crunch of grit and stone a little way away. "I think it is high time you got up. It's nearly midday."

Harry dragged his eyes open, lids fluttering. He felt unreasonably tired for having slept so much. He realised with a horrible lurch as he sat upright that he was still on the patch of green beside the path, not to mention being utterly freezing. He shivered. It felt as if the cold had got into his very bones. Larch was standing casually on the path, gloved hands clasped before him. Harry found himself rather envious of the warm cloak the man was wearing as he ran a hand through his hair to get the fragments of dead leaves out; there was a chilly bite in the air that clouded his breath before him even this late in the morning.

"Drink," Larch said as he moved to stand beside him. Harry found his hands filled with a little silver hip flask, similar to Moody's.

"What is it?"

"Firewhiskey, it'll warm you up," Larch returned, already walking up the path.

"Uh…hey!" Harry called out, running to catch up, "you're going the wrong way!"

"I am quite aware of where I live," Larch reminded him.

Harry flushed at the thinly veiled disdain in his voice, and instead twisted off the cap on the flask to sniff at the drink and then take a tentative sip. Having never had Firewhiskey he coughed and spluttered something awful before finally managing to swallow the heavy spirit. Bubbling warmth seemed to spread from his mouth to his stomach in a burning trail, and he cradled the flask in his hands as if it would heat them through the metal.

"Strong stuff," he huffed, and Larch smiled crookedly.

"Far better to drink in the snow than brandy, at any rate," he replied. "Magical liquors have all sorts of uses."

Harry risked a glance at the dark haired man before taking another sip. "You're quite interested in alcohol aren't you?"

Larch paused mid stride, and then let out an eerie chuckle. Harry was certain it was the first time he had heard him laugh at all, which didn't exactly make him feel less the fool for asking the question. The deadened weight he'd carried in his chest when he first came to the house was gone, and he cared decidedly more about what his host might think of him than he had initially. He got the feeling he'd be spending a long time in his company, after all.

"You could say that. They are not all that they seem." Harry remained silent, and was rewarded when Larch continued to speak. "Wizarding alcohol has the unique ability to hold a large quantity of magic in it, making it ideal for things other than drinking. Thumbroot distillations for example, are some of the most versatile Potions bases, not to mention one of the cheapest, and Goldenberry wines are proven to have been used in Ancient Elven rituals."

"Oh," Harry said intelligently.

They walked in silence for several minutes, Harry alternately sipping the Firewhiskey and glancing between his host and the gradually receding fields below. It occurred to him after awhile that he still had no idea where they were going, and he broke the silence to rectify that.

"Where are we going?"

Larch shook his hair back out of his face. "I thought we would take this chance to collect some ingredients. Memorise the route when we leave the path, because you'll be coming back for more every few weeks."

Harry hummed unhappily, and decided to stop asking questions. Sure, he could do with the time outside the house but the walk had taken him a little over an hour, he was sure. Eventually they neared the summit of the hill, and broke away from the dirt track when it continued alongside the slope, heading straight up instead.

"Chalk Peak is mainly used for grazing," Larch called back against the blustery wind, "which means that it's mostly heather and bracken, but magical plants of a certain type thrive in the same conditions."

Harry nodded vaguely, and to his shame found that he was out of breath when they reached the flat peak, whereas Larch wasn't even breathing heavily. He vowed to himself to pluck up the courage and ask the man to teach him some of the exercises that he did in the morning.

_At least I'm awake now_, he thought mutinously, winding his arms around himself in an attempt to stave off the cold.

Harry paused briefly to look out over the land that stretched out below them. There were more hills running in a belt from the one they stood on, but the town was situated on flat ground. Harry could see a murky river snaking through it, and wondered how he'd missed that on his way up to the house. Then his companion had broken away, and was scouting the short grass and shrubs for something.

"This," he said, bending to pick a sprout, "is Sheepsbane." He twirled a tough stem with tiny tendril-like structures nestled in between the leaves. "They evolved in grazing lands and feed on most herbivores, although they have adapted to favour livestock. A single animal eats enough of this and the conditions in the body are altered; the temperature rises and the enzymes in it don't function as well, and the conditions of the stomach are turned to an even higher acidity. The end result is that the animal is weakened and dies, its corpse falls on the land, and the plant uses these little tendrils to sap the nutrients."

Harry grimaced a little.

"However, it takes a sheep a good deal of time to eat enough and the effect is cumulative so it's generally the older ones who fall prey. Otherwise you'd hear cases about mysterious deaths of livestock all the time." Larch told him, before thoughtfully nipping the end of the stem off and chewing on it. "It's used for many things, but ancient wizards would chew it to clean their teeth. You," he said with a pointed look, "will be collecting and feeding these plants."

"Feeding?" Harry asked with a dubious expression.

"Every month you'll bring up a slab of meat and leave it near a clump of them," Larch elaborated. "You'll also need to collect fresh heather flowers and a particular fungus called the Fairy's Net. Heather," he gestured around them, "is abundant, but Fairy's Net will be a challenge. They are small blue caps that grow in rings. You'll know them when you see them."

Harry let his head droop miserably. He was growing less interested in the plan by the second. "Where do they grow?"

Larch smiled, and it wasn't warm or reassuring. "That's the challenge. There's a book in the library on mushrooms and how to harvest them – just a simple twist and pull. Now," he conjured a basket, "get to it."

Harry took it with reluctance. Nothing wrong with harvesting plants of course, but there was nothing particularly interesting about it either. Larch seemed to think so too, because instead of helping him he strolled absently around the hillside. Harry meanwhile picked stems of the Sheepsbane, taking a few from each plant. He'd done enough in Herbology to know not to strip a plant completely bare, and at least the species was abundant enough that that wasn't a problem. He'd collected a fair few bunches when Larch returned with what looked like a handful of twigs and a stone, placing them in the basket. This went back and forth for awhile, Harry gradually accumulating a reasonable stash of stems and Larch depositing small pebbles and the occasional mushroom. Finally he came back with the corpse of a small rodent.

"That's revolting," Harry noted as he dropped it by the tail onto his bundles of Sheepsbane. He swore something in its guts moved.

"Yes," Larch said blandly, "and in it are the larvae of a rare British fly that lays its eggs in the intestines of unsuspecting rodents in these parts."

"Why would you want them?" Harry asked, more because he wanted something to distract him from the maggoty mouse than from real curiosity.

"They excrete an important mucus used in Entrancement potions," Larch replied with a smile that told him that he was more amused by Harry's disgust than was proper.

"Great," said Harry weakly.

* * *

Su sang absentmindedly as she worked - cutting, chopping, crushing and pounding. Leaves were broken, the thin ones cut into strips, the thicker ones crushed for their juices, roots were chopped angled and wide, and then all were poured into a bowl one after another and pounded into a fine paste. She licked the tip of her finger and smeared it round the top of the bowl.

_Protection_, she willed.

Scooping the paste into her palm she unrolled one of the long lengths of paper and spread it across the workbench. In a smooth motion she swiped her hand down it, leaving a dark red trail in its wake.

_Bloodshed_.

With a flick of her palm the remnants fell away like oil off water, and she reached for her wand to trace thin lines into the drying red surface like paint.

_Vengeance._

Finishing, she punched a hole through the end and hung the piece of paper from the rafters to dry. The entire ceiling was covered in them now; they tickled her shoulders and brushed across her head as she walked past, sending shivers down her spine. This wasn't showy magic like those curs did outside. This was something more powerful, more natural. You couldn't feel it over your skin when it touched you, nor did it raise the hairs on your arms, but you could feel it in your soul, your very essence. It spoke directly to your magic.

Picking up the scroll she surveyed the contents once more to check that everything was there then rolled it up. This was a dark list, these banners – she hadn't felt emotions like these in a long time but with each paper streamer she made it had intensified, drawing the darkness out of her, lodging it like a shadow in the forefront of her mind. She could feel it still as she walked, as she cleaned up the ingredients and made the protective signs over the mixtures.

"Dark things," she murmured, before her voice drifted into song again, without words, just a high, thin sound. By no conventional standards could her singing voice be considered beautiful, but it was treasured it because it unfailingly trailed out just the right tune.

Su shifted her song from protective notes to cleansing, and reached for a jar that sat high on the shelves. In it was a crystal clear, viscous liquid that she took a handful of and re-screwed the lid. Before the mirror, she liberally dabbed it on her face and hands; one blob on her forehead, one on the tip of her nose, one on each cheek, on her lower lip, on her eyelids. She traced a pattern over her hands and up to her elbows, then put the last in two places on the soles of her feet.

"Cloacina expurgo mea," she intoned, and the gel disappeared with a hiss of steam that turned rapidly black in the air. She coughed when it went up her nose, and for a moment her eyes rolled back in her head, exposing the whites.

_Breathe out, not in, don't breathe, don't breathe,_ she chanted, and when she returned to the cramped workroom, dazed, the black curls had vanished. She inhaled with a gasp and regarded her reflection critically.

Black eyes stared back at her from a heart-shaped face. Black hair tangled around her shoulders and the collar of her clothes. Frowning, she dragged the lids back from her eyes and hummed when she saw the tiny black capillaries embedded in the whites. To the side of the mirror was a jar of powder, and taking a pinch she blew it towards her reflection, nodding in satisfaction as the pupils gradually lightened, the blood became red, and soon her eyes were their normal dark brown. Not much of a change, but they were warmer. Satisfied, she traced one of the thread-bound braids in her hair, pulling it forwards and beginning to unravel it. With each curl of coloured thread she pulled away from it, she felt some measure of power returning.

Finally released from her bonds, she tied the thread to the loop around her wrist and turned to survey the workshop.

It was crowded; the already full space imposed upon by the streamers hanging from the rafters, the benches stained with years of use and the shelves packed haphazardly with ingredients and tools. Her Papa had kept it neat, but she liked the chaos as it was – each in its place but without any order to justify it. She knew where the objects and plants she wanted were, but no one else would be able to find a thing. Everything was a secret, even while it lay as exposed as a gutted animal. In between the streamers hung bundles of dried flowers and herbs, and a brace of pheasants in one corner. From the grimy window at the back of the store grew a plant. It had trailed in through the window one day, and she'd watched it grow with interest, creeping up the wall to curl among the other things that hung down until it trailed thick swathes over the room and let off a pungent odour of green and damp. The front of the store remained tame enough for customers to venture into accompanied only by unease, but back here was her haven, her paradise. Papa would hate it, but she took perverse pleasure in that knowledge. She had successfully corrupted the once neat workroom into something of her own making.

Picking up her wand from the bench, she bundled her hair up and threaded it through the knot. She picked up the kettle from the hot plate hidden in the shadows between shelves of pickled things. Her burrowing hands found a cup among the stacks and piles of paper on the desk, filling it with a pinch of powder here, a leaf there, until she had worked her way round half the shelves. Adding the boiling water, she inhaled the steam and breathed a sigh of contentment. It chased the last of the black stuff from her mind like a charm.

Still humming, she made her way out of the workshop and up the rickety stairs, notes flowing out of her and twining themselves into the tea. She didn't know what they would do, but they felt right enough to meld with the ingredients and simmer. She didn't bother to knock on Papa's door anymore, just pushed it open and walked over to his bed.

"Papa," she said flatly, "tea."

He jerked awake and away from her, grey hair flying wildly in his face before he relaxed. Closing his eyes, he breathed in the scents. "Good," he rumbled with a voice like breaking twigs, "but you need more clover." Opening them he smiled at her. "Su Su," he murmured happily, "finished already?"

She returned the smile and bowed her head. "I have finished," she agreed. "There were unpleasant things in those. The owner has a dark soul to order such a thing."

Papa's eyes creased and he nodded absently, moving to cradle the cup in his lined hands. "Not so much as will come, still."

"What is coming?" she asked, leaning forwards to peer into his eyes. "You're sick again."

Papa laughed hoarsely. "I am always sick."

Su leaned back, dissatisfied with the answer. It was true enough though. He was dying, very close to death. "What is coming?" she repeated.

"Many things, like a flock of starlings coming in to land for the night. As many as the ants in a nest."

"That isn't helpful Papa. Drink your tea," she urged him with her hands.

"I won't tell you the other things," he said taking a sip, "but I will look out for family."

"Did you see something for me?" Su asked with another frown.

He smiled vaguely. "Some things I saw, some things I might see. I can't tell you until I know well enough, or it might happen without my say."

"Hm," she replied.

Pushing away from the bed, leaving him to drink his tea, Su went around the bedroom, watering the thin-leafed plant, folding robes, and brushing the dust off the set of ceramic cats that sat on the mantelpiece. She was just getting to the sixth one when he interrupted the silence.

"How do you feel about getting married Su Su?"

She started with unpleasant surprise. The cat she had been holding fell with a resolute splintering of sound onto the floor.

"Look what you made me do!" she cried.

"Su…so clumsy!" he exclaimed, voice fading into mumbles. "That was my favourite, the most special, and now it is broken-"

Su dropped to her knees to pick up the scattered pieces. There were two halves that she put together with a gritty click, but when she turned it round she saw that a part was missing from the back of its ear. Papa rambled and reprimanded, but she ignored him and peered around the room, across the floor, even though she knew it couldn't have got that far.

"Always been the clumsiest!" Papa grumbled. "Should have told Mei to stay for longer…"

With a sigh, Su put the two pieces back on the mantel. The old man had always liked the sound of his own voice, especially during tirades.

"No!" Papa stopped her. "Do you think they want the pieces of their friend up there to remind them? Keep those grubby hands away from them if you know what's best. Did you cleanse your skin?"

"Yes Papa," she replied wearily, putting the pieces onto the bedside table instead.

"Not well enough," he said, putting his tea down and reaching out to examine her palms with disdain. "Not well enough," he repeated.

"Papa," Su said sharply, cutting him off. "It was a mistake."

He eyed her disapprovingly. "Bad luck," he mumbled, "to break them." He dropped her hands and turned to slot the two pieces of the cat together. A thin crack remained down the glaze, and he turned it critically. "You will need to find the other part of its ear," he told her sternly, but his eyes had already become unfocused, drifting unseeingly across the walls, the issue already fleeing from his mind.

She took the pieces back in her hands and placed them back on the bedside table. With a sigh, he took another sip of his tea and shut his eyes, seemingly indifferent once more. Su waited, until finally it seemed he wouldn't resume his earlier topic after all.

"Papa? What did you say about marriage?"

His eyes jerked open and he squinted irritably at her. "I said nothing!" he huffed. "Go back downstairs and finish the charms. And when is Mu coming back?"

A corner of Su's mouth twitched at the dismissal. "He is out playing with his lovers," she said with distaste.

"No, no," he mumbled, and then his face lit up with a distant smile. "He is getting married, did you know? He told me just yesterday."

Su sincerely doubted that. But her brother had been spoiled all his life; he was used to getting what he wanted out of others. Her father had already become vacant-eyed as she rose to leave, shutting the door behind her. Still, this fixation on marriage was…strange. Some of what he saw in his delirium came true, other things did not, but there was always a chance.

"Stupid old man," she mumbled, and set about making herself a cup of tea to calm her nerves. It was possible that he didn't remember what he had been about to say, but he was more likely being difficult. The old man was as tricky as a sphinx, and she had half a suspicion that when he died he would hang around the house as a ghost to continue plaguing the family with half-truths and riddles. She had never particularly liked him, but her conscience wouldn't let her leave him to his own devices in such a weakened state. He was family, and they would all contribute to his care until his time was up.

Su sat for awhile at one of the tables, regarding the pile of half-finished wooden sticks and carvings they sold in the front of the store. Finally she set the tea down and let her hands stray over them, touching them, feeling the texture and grain in her hands. Mentally she separated one from another; the monkey was good, the elephant useless, the cat useless, the rat lucky, until she could recall each one just from touch. Those that were useless, they'd put out front for the dogs to buy and put their faith in, and those who knew what they really sold would come into the back of the store and spend their money on the real charms. Sometimes she'd chuck one or two of the real charms into the front, just to keep people interested.

Su whistled whilst she worked, fingers finding a model of a dog. Scowling, she took her wand from where it sat in the knot in her hair and began to smooth the contours, the whistled notes drawing out the magic in the wood. She hated dogs more than all other animals. The westerners with their barbaric customs and practice of magic were no better than the animals they kept. They slurped their food from the same bowl. None of them had any appreciation for subtlety, for the finer arts, or for simple _manners_. The pureblood elite was just as susceptible to faux pas as the rest of them, yet the thought themselves superior. Why, the man who'd come in to her shop to make the orders hadn't even bothered to cleanse his magic, and he obviously thought very highly of himself.

It disgusted her.

With irritation, she realised that the little dog charm would help to make someone prosperous one day, if they were fortunate enough. That was the way the fickle magic worked. Perhaps she'd put it in with the streamers as a token of good will.

Unintentionally, her mind strayed back to what her father had said. Marriage? She hadn't even considered it. Well, of course she had, but not with any serious thought. She might marry eventually, but she was quite happy to remain a spinster until she died. If her father died then Mu would take over the business, and he would undoubtedly want nothing to do with it. If he did pass it to her, then she didn't want to risk it going straight into the hands of a greedy husband through some loophole in marriage. She would not be tamed and made to conform to the customs of the people around her. If she didn't have such strong ties to her family she would move back to their homelands, but… There had been fallings out before they left for England, she knew. It wasn't somewhere that the name Li would be welcomed still with open arms.

"Help me Jin," she whispered out loud. "Help me Mama, if he is right."

The dog seemed to laugh at her. Su tossed it angrily to the side and began on a horse. Papa was only interested in dreams and the future at the moment. The exceptionally neat and pragmatic man that had barely impressed himself on her childhood but for the briefest glimpses of him toiling away in the workroom had transformed into her greatest chore. Jin had always been more mysterious and wild, but she would look after him because she cared for him, because she had been his wife. She had loved her children, taught them the old family lore and traditions, and still supported her husband in between.

_The model wife_, Su thought with disdain. Hogwarts had changed her more than she liked to admit. The idea of a woman designed only for marriage repulsed her. Over the years after Jin's death, she'd come to realise that there had been more to the woman than appeared on the surface. There were late night escapades and strange powders that she dared not touch, chalk on the attic floor and books filled only with blank pages. Her father ignored it. Mei didn't care. Mu blackmailed her with it.

Su kept it close to her heart. They were the only clues she had to the real character of her mother, not that which had been presented for all those years before her death.

_Mei is married happily_, she reminded herself. But Mei had been suited to marriage, barely a year older than her. She'd found a docile young man with a reasonable income and settled herself in like a bird to a nest. Their firstborn was on its way – Jin if it was a girl, John if it was a boy.

"That's what comes of marrying the dogs," Su murmured. She tried to put her mind to rest, to bury herself in the charms. Marriage was inconsequential. If Papa had been wrong her then nothing would come of it; if he had seen something in his dreams that was true, then there was nothing she could do about it.

As the sun began to set and evening drew in she set some food to cook, chopping vegetables much like she'd chopped the roots for the streamers, the repetitive task soothing her mind. The feeling in the workroom hung oppressively about her, and she couldn't wait until the order was collected tomorrow. They made her feel crushed into her own body. Apprehensively, she peered into the mirror, checking the capillaries in her eyes again.

"I wouldn't keep on looking. You aren't getting any prettier."

Su spun with a scowl on her face. Mu stood in the doorway, handsome face distorted in distaste as he took in the state of the room.

"This is disgusting," he said finally, as if giving a judge's verdict. "You'd do best to clean it up in here before Father finds out. And cut down that plant for Merlin's sake."

"You say that every time you come in here. Nothing is going to change." Su bared her teeth at him and turned to stir the stew. She felt him move closer, and then pick up one of her braids with careless curiosity.

"Get off!" she snapped, batting it out of his hand.

"Quiet little sister, or you'll get what's coming to you," he said offhandedly, and plucked at one of her braids again. Su snorted at the threat. "I don't know why you do this," he said, beginning to unravel it. "One thing you should've learnt here is that binding your power doesn't affect potions at all."

Su brushed his hands away again, retying the knots as she felt magic rolling back over her in waves. "That's because you've forgotten what you've been taught," she snapped. "You've forgotten about true magic."

Her brother's face seemed to close in on itself. "Oh, I see," he replied coldly. "Still clinging to the past? Our family has been here for two generations and yet you continue on in this manner, talking about the old magic as if it were superior. Father allows it because he is nostalgic and senile, but when I hold the title as Head of the family-"

"You don't yet," she hissed back, stirring the stew vigorously.

"But I will," he continued, unconcerned. "He is going to sign it over before Christmas."

"What happens will happen," she replied steadily. "And you will still need me to run the shop. There are others that would be far more willing to have my expertise." It twisted her heart to say that, to even consider giving up the shop, but Mu didn't seem to pick up on this.

"I might sell it," he said uncaringly, but his eyes remained fixed on her.

"But you won't."

He seemed irritated by that, but left the room and called loftily back, "Inform Father than Sarah will be dining with us tonight, and put clean sheets on my bed."

"You can do it yourself!" Su's mouth curled downwards in disgust. He wouldn't do it with Papa around, but he used the fact that his English paramours bothered her to its full advantage. Vapid, idiotic excuses for witches, all of them. Which one was Sarah anyway? She couldn't remember her, tongue tangling over the multitude of complicated names: Elizabeth, Rachel, Persephone, Clementine, Amelia, Angelica…

"And hurry up with the food!" he called back over his shoulder.

Su felt her face curl with a snarl of anger. A glance out of the tiny window showed the sky pasted delicate shades of pink against the blue. She decided that she would cast the stones later, and decide whether it would be sensible to open the store tomorrow at all.

Turning the stove off with a flick of her hand, she began to stack up bowls and chopsticks to carry into the other room, levitating the stew after her. The table was half set when she heard a screeching laugh float down the stairs, and suddenly she remembered just who Sarah was.

There was a grating and tiresome evening ahead of her. Family…a burden that she couldn't shake off until the old man died and the ownership of the shop and titles were settled. If the Head of the Family fell to Mu, as it undoubtedly would, then she would be fighting to retain her independence as well. That was the magic associated with families; the Head of the Family had legal and even some magical power over those within the family, and it couldn't be escaped without the indignity of relinquishing all ties and the family name – an alternative that no one in their right mind would chose. Even staying under a yoke was better than the downsides, magically, physically and mentally.

Su sighed. She would bide her time, until the chance arose, and then she would fight tooth and nail.

* * *

"Why are you brewing all these Potions?"

Larch looked up at him through the thick fumes rising from the cauldron with surprise.

"Not for love of the subject at any rate." Larch tipped the chopped salamander feet into the cauldron with a smooth sweep of his arm, moving to stir the amber liquid.

"You're not a Potions Master then?" Harry asked.

The dark haired man snorted in disbelief. "No, indeed I am not. Did you think I was a wealthy bachelor without enough amusement to be brewing potions all the time Harry?"

To his embarrassment, vague notions in that direction were the only things that Harry had been able to come up with without scaring himself.

"Well, it is easy enough to see that you are labouring under some sort of delusions about my occupation," Larch remarked. "I collect ingredients and sell potions in order to earn a living. You can get quite the pretty sum if you're prepared to make anything."

"And are you?" Harry pursued; watching in distant fascination as the steam turned to a vivid violet. There was something particularly calming about observing someone else operate so smoothly and effortlessly, with no worries that Snape would be peering over his shoulder at any minute.

"Nearly everything, yes," Larch agreed. "It depends who I'm selling to."

Harry nodded vaguely. "So you're making the potions to sell them?"

Larch smiled evasively. "Some of them."

Harry frowned. "What do you do with the rest?"

"I make batches of healing potions and salves when I run out of my own, and various draughts to add to my stores. There are some potions that decay at a spectacular rate despite precautions, and they must be replaced frequently." Larch dropped a handful of beetle eyes into the cauldron, and Harry admired the way he worked. It was the same with him when he had been cooking at the Dursleys – he knew exactly how much to add to any one dish just by sight and touch.

"Why replace them at all?" he asked curiously. "Surely you can just make another batch when you need them?"

His host's eyes flicked up to meet his briefly, and then back to the ingredients. "Some of them, such as Blood-replenishing solutions, are necessary to have at hand because if you in such a state to need them then you hardly have the time to brew them. Others such as the Wolfsbane potion do not last past one lunar cycle and must be brewed freshly to be effective."

"You know werewolves," Harry guessed.

"A few," was his unrevealing answer.

"Anyone I might know?" Harry felt unwise hope bubbling in his chest. If Remus were still around, perhaps he could meet him again, see some remnant of his old life.

"Lupin has not been seen since your disappearance fourteen years ago, although his status as a registered werewolf is renewed every five years," he replied without looking up.

Harry swallowed sharply, his mouth suddenly dry. "H-how…how do you know that I know Remus?"

Larch smiled at him again, and Harry became aware of the knife he was using hitting the board with a 'thunk, thunk, thunk' as he chopped. "It's not difficult to trace. A friend of your father's, a teacher in your third year who mysteriously retreats after your disappearance and hasn't been seen since. Not difficult to link him to Harry Potter."

Harry hissed, air rushing through his teeth and turning them cold. All the horrible, emotionless despair he'd felt came rushing back like a place or a shape calling to memory. "_Don't_ use that _name_."

"As you wish," Larch replied blandly, measuring out a dram of liquid. "What am I to call you then?"

Harry remained in brooding silence, feelings roiling and churning inside his chest. It was strange, he reflected, how the conversation had changed tempo so suddenly. He felt betrayed, and couldn't understand why. He felt guilty for exposing Lupin. "Just Harry," he mumbled, and added almost to himself, "I'm not who I was before."

"Indeed. Did you finish the chapters I set you on the properties of certain numbers?"

Harry dragged his mind back to the present and accepted the change in topic for what it was. "Yes," he said, only a little bitterness creeping into his voice. "I can nearly manage ten substance Transfigurations now, but I have to do it in two motions."

Larch stirred the liquid in the cauldron with a wooden ladle. "Show me."

Harry frowned, patting down his pockets for his wand. Finally he looked up at his host, alarmed. "I-I can't find my wand."

Larch looked unpleasantly surprised. "Did you take it out with you?"

"Yeah," Harry said miserably, a sinking feeling beginning in his stomach. "I must have lost it up on the hill…"

With a few flicks of his own wand, Larch had placed the cauldron in a stasis. "Accio," he muttered.

"Hey…wait!" Harry said, alarmed. "You can't summon it! You don't know what it could hit!"

A wand did fly into the room a moment later, but as Harry grabbed it eagerly out of the air to examine it for possible scratches he realised…

"It's not mine."

"No. Take it and collect your own," Larch instructed sharply. "When you return with it, do not let it out of your sight again."

Harry was about to leave the lab when a cold feeling settled over him, starting from his head and trickling down his back as if he had been soaked with a bucket of water. Reaching a tentative hand up to see if he really had been drenched, he cast a glance back to his host.

"A few precautionary spells. It's not wise to leave without any." Larch gave him a long look. "Do not get caught."

Nodding tersely, Harry headed down the corridor, away from the lab. He made his way through the house and the garden at a jog, but had to slow as he reached the lane. He wouldn't be able to keep up that pace all the way there, and he didn't want to end up out of breath. Cursing, he began the lengthy walk back up to the heath. The sun was lowering in the sky and the nippy quality from the morning had gone, leaving a swell of heat in its wake.

Harry wiped sweat from his brow and hoped that he hadn't been such a fool as to completely lose his wand.

* * *

"What did you discover?" Nymphadora asked offhandedly. She was aware of the young man standing uncomfortably behind her, waiting for some sign or motion to indicate that he could relax, but she wasn't feeling charitable this evening.

"They don't know where he is either."

_Still such a childish voice_, she thought absently, scratching off her signature on the bottom of a report.

"And they've sent out their own search party?"

"Yes," he replied, stiffly. "I'm helping with the search."

"Good." Nymphadora spun in her chair, turning to face him. She could almost feel the weight of his gaze tracing up her slender legs to the line of her skirt, unaware that he was even doing it. "And the other sides?"

He frowned. "Dumbledore suspects that the Death Eaters have a man tracking him, but he was rather vague…I think he doesn't know."

Nymphadora scowled. "No one expects you to think, Creevey. Just keep an eye and an ear on everything, and your mind closed. Speak to the old man as little as is possible, for Merlin's sake."

"I still don't understand what yet _another_ Potter-Impersonator has to do with anything," he whined, nervousness at once forgotten as he slumped into a nearby chair. "Everyone is so obsessed with the boy, even though he's been gone for fourteen years!"

"Surely you'd be the one to know about obsession," she observed dryly, and he flushed an unflattering pink.

"That's different," he replied stiffly. "What's the fuss over him still? He's nothing now."

"He is _everything_," she replied forcefully, emotion seeping into her voice for the first time since Colin had arrived. He looked at the normally composed woman curiously.

"Something bothering you?"

She opened her mouth, and for a moment he thought she might even answer him. "No questions Creevey."

He glared at her. "Something else happened that might interest you," he said slowly, watching her all the while, extending the bait. "An answer for an answer."

Something in her expression hardened, and he saw the way her fingers flicked in anticipation of an attack. One of the few remnants of her Auror days. Despite past experiences, he wouldn't be cowed. Something about the situation told him to stick to it, to stay silent and wait her out.

_Like smoking an animal out,_ he thought.

"You're an impudent little brat, you know that Creevey?" He felt a small smile cross his face, and let his eyes drift arrogantly over her. Nymphadora cracked a crooked grin. "I met this 'Impostor' that's been advertised all over the news. He only fell into my hands because he'd channelled so much raw power into his spells that he was in danger of shredding a Stunner."

Colin paled, and then forced a laugh. "Strong," he muttered. "Well, let's just thank our lucky stars that the boy _isn't _Potter."

"I know that Dumbledore already knows that he's been captured, and escaped, but if the power of his spells gets out, you know what will happen," she reminded him. No doubt the little worm was squirreling away titbits of information to use as blackmail if he ever wanted something. She wouldn't usually let anything like this slip.

"I wouldn't have dreamt of telling him."

Nymphadora snorted and turned away briefly to seal a document and send it whizzing over her head into the next office. His innocent act was done very well, if you hadn't seen the other side.

"What would the New Ministry do with him then, if he's the real deal?" she heard from behind her.

"One question only Creevey. That's your quota for the month."

"I can't even trade it for a delightful evening of my company?" he asked winsomely.

"No," she said abruptly. Sometimes it surprised even her how much the blonde would play at being a man. He'd lived through a decade and more of battles, and he still flirted with her like a schoolboy. She wondered how he managed to stay so undamaged.

"Really?" he feigned surprise, and she could hear him twirling in his seat. "I could convince my brother you know-"

"You're both children," she replied dismissively. "I only bed men. Now about your information…"

Looking back over her shoulder she could see his face tighten and then relax into a forced casualness. "All right Nymphadora," he said with a dazzling smile, "just for you."

Turning fully, she cut him off with a steady stare.

"Look into my eyes, and tell me the truth," she said, a smirk curling her lips upwards. He swallowed lightly.

"Only for you," he repeated.

Nymphadora let a small frisson of pleasure bloom in her mind as she cut into his own, hidden behind the glassy surface of his eyes. She skimmed over his memories as he talked, absorbing his words along with his thoughts. It was a small payback for forcing her to yield earlier, a petty one, but there was precious little else to amuse her, she reminded herself.

_Colin talked to the bushy-haired girl to his left…Hermione…drawn closer by the sweet scent of her hair that reminded him of hay, leaning closer to talk excitedly about whatever came to mind…watching her eyes glaze as she nodded vacantly, bored…Albus drawing his robes around him in a flourish and commanding an instant hush…talk of Harry Potter…vampires…_and then…

"-he kept Granger behind. I knew it was something important but he cut them off, and later they left for Hogwarts…"

…_loitering in the dingy kitchen, Remus' grey hair and lifeless face passing him by with a polite nod, then the privacy spells erected in a grey globe…two figures passing him in the corridor, a happy smile crossing his face…stepping into the old fireplace and…_

"They have a working Floo?" she snarled. Colin shifted uncomfortably in front of her; words cut off in a suddenly dry mouth.

"It's not…" he trailed off, then licked his lips. "It doesn't-"

Nymphadora was suddenly far less interested in the little crumb of golden speculation compared to the veritable mine she'd just discovered. They had a working Floo. Since Scrimgeour and Bones had taken the Floo system the country had been in ruin with their communications, and this could only mean one of two things. Either they had come to some sort of agreement with the Old Ministry side, or they had found a way to pass their surveillance unnoticed. Both were potentially very important and very dangerous developments.

Standing in one swift movement, she reached forwards and grasped the boy's chin in one suddenly stronger hand.

"_Leglimens,"_ she hissed viciously, delving back into his mind.

This time there was nothing gentle about it, and he tried vainly to repel her, throwing memories about like confetti, but she was already too far in, and he wasn't in a position to become emotionless and present a blank canvas to her.

_He was a child, crying as a larger boy clipped him in the shoulder with his fist, taking his money, and then it was burning hot and the boy screamed, scorch marks over his fingers…Dumbledore standing with a flourish and commanding an instant hush…talk of Harry Potter and vampires…a glimpse of the Floo, stepping towards it…he was in Hogwarts, in Potions, being berated by Snape, hooked nose dominating his sight until it was all he could see as the man raved…Moody was gruffly explaining that their researchers had created a scrambler for Floo monitoring, and he was beaming at Hermione, knowing in his heart that it was _her_ who'd overcome it, definitely…he was approaching Nymphadora for the first time, wide, hungry eyes taking in her slim figure and delicate heart-shaped face, various fantasies swimming to mind when he first understood that she was a Metamorphmagus…_

"Thank you Co-Creevey," she said, stepping back smoothly. Colin sat slumped in his chair, head bowed, panting. She noticed with no small amount of pride that he was sweating profusely, and shaking. Her attacks were as harsh as she wanted them to be, but she'd really outdone herself this time.

"It's Granger, then, who's the bright little spark that keeps inventing on command, huh?" she aimed an unprofessional kick to his shins, and he yelped in pain. Smiling brightly, she shifted effortlessly into the girl's form, down to the very scent of her.

Colin's face filled with horror.

"Is this what you want Colin?" she asked softly. "Why wouldn't you tell me this before?"

He swallowed and shook his head stiffly. "No…"

"About the Floo…it doesn't matter. We'd have found out eventually, really. But Colin…why didn't you tell me that you liked me this way?" she crooned, stepping forwards and angling one leg between his, cradling his face in her hands and tilting it upwards.

"Nym-Nymphadora…don't do this…please," he mumbled.

She looked at him gently and leant forwards, placing soft lips over his, smiling against him as he moaned. Slowly his hands traced forwards, upwards, to rest on her hips and draw her closer…

"I hope you've learnt your lesson Creevey," she laughed carelessly, stepping away and back into her own form, fitting her like a glove– so intrinsically right. Still, she stumbled a little at the transition, being unused to Granger's body. "Tell me what I want to know, and you might even see that little lady again."

Colin groaned. "You're a horrible bitch," he said, but she ignored it, going back to the reports that lay on her desk. "An evil bitch."

"But I mean it," Nymphadora replied with a curl of her lip. "Bring me something worthwhile for once, and I'll treat you right."

The young man ran a hand through his hair and gave her a considering look. "What kind of information do you want?"

Nymphadora felt a little thrill of victory, and bit her tongue to stop herself showing it. "I want the specifics of the Floo system, exactly where it emerges, and the spells behind it. Drug the girl if you need to, you're experienced enough to get away with it. Just make sure the old man is nowhere nearby, and Moody too."

There was silence, and then a sigh. "It might be difficult. If one's not around then another is."

"I trust you to think of something foolproof to draw them away. Something they both want."

She didn't need to turn to see his eyes light up in understanding.

"Potter."

* * *

The weather at the top of the hill was still and peaceful, ground hot and dry under his bare feet and palms. The clear skies had let the earth become heated, and in the late sun it was the perfect temperature. Realistically, he shouldn't have worried so much; locating his lost wand had been ridiculously easy. It had fallen a little on from where he had been gathering plants, and a quick 'Point me' had more than sufficed. He'd looked it over for scratches and any signs of wear and tear, but it was unmarked and unaffected. That done, Harry thought he'd take a small break and a rest, because after all, the day had turned out to be lovely, and surely Larch wouldn't be expecting him back so soon? He had protective spells over him, and he wasn't so keen to shut himself back in that house again so soon.

Head filled with sunshine and false security, he practised his transfigurations, struggling on the ten-substance mixtures and occasionally sketching out his calculations in the dust. He was deliriously happy to have his wand back, surprised to have found it so easily. With a frown of concentration, he turned and went through the motions once more, focusing on the leaf and then…

It whirled slowly upwards, twisting in coils of colour; gold; silver; ruby; sapphire; greens; violets; black; platinum; marine blue. He smiled to see his work – a goblet, adorned with gems on all sides – and reached out to touch it.

To his alarm, it seemed to quiver, and then it retracted into itself, gold peeling away from the silver, the stones set into the sides pinging out like stretched buttons, raining down all around him.

"Bugger!" Harry exclaimed eloquently. "Accio!"

The gems flew towards him, and then seemed to pause and slow in mid air before flying away again.

"Fuck!" he shouted, moving to stand. "Accio! Accio!"

Each time the different substances came towards him they were repulsed, the liquid gold and silver splattering in the air into tiny little droplets.

With a sudden flash of insight, he pulled off his T-shirt and laid it onto the ground. "Accio Acclino Ceterus!"

The objects piled into his T-shirt, settling comfortably onto the fabric. The gold and silver promptly soaked into his shirt like liquid. Biting his lip, he folded and sealed the substances inside the shirt with his wand, and summoned it. Wrapping his hand around the bundle, he could feel his creations _squirm._

What he didn't see as he jogged back down the hill were the little globules of metal still scattered and resting on the grass and dusty earth.

* * *

**  
Author's Notes:**

Su – she'll have faults, just like everyone else. No Ginny-sue as a substitute for at least _trying_ to characterise her either. As with Larch, I'll do my best to make sure she doesn't enter into the land of fandom cliché or take away from Harry. Also, I'm not going to specify where she comes from, because I'll undoubtedly get people pointing out that Chinese or Japanese or Nepalese or Indo-Australian-French-Taiwanese culture isn't quite _like_ that. Let's say wizarding culture is substantially different from Muggle culture and leave it at that. I'm aware that during this chapter she doesn't appear the strongest character, but I hope to build on that. By the time she and Harry meet she'll be fiercely independent and someone in her own right. Or, at least, that's what I'm aiming for. Crits are always appreciated.

Nymphadora – So, you get a better idea of her character in this chapter. People might object to the change from canon, but frankly I couldn't see the happy-go-lucky gal from the books surviving this long in my story. So…I've tweaked her a bit, and made her a lot more savvy and vicious. Something I think is overlooked too much in canon is that a Metamorphmagus could be used far more effectively than spying on Harry in the form of an old lady, thus, her position in the New Ministry.


	7. Selling and Healing

**Chapter Seven: Selling and Healing**

"Let's see what we have," Larch murmured with a smile that Harry didn't know what to make of, depositing the writhing bundle onto the table. With a few flicks of his wand it came undone, and both of them stood back, waiting. Inside, the various gems and patches of gold and silver had become still.

"It just fell apart," said Harry despondently. "And look," he indicated, moving a hand towards the different components. They shivered and edged away from his palm.

Larch hummed, and they stilled once more. "Ten substance Transfiguration," he noted. "You didn't complete the spell correctly. You need to _bind_ Transfigurations of this level, or they are naturally repulsed. It's a classic example of Caturpulte the Wise's Rule of Negativity."

Harry dredged vague notions of the Rule from the back of his mind. "Anything involving above a certain degree of magic must be bound or it is naturally repelled by the caster's innate magic," he recited.

"Correct." Larch paused to regard him. "Show me the wand motions you used."

Harry rifled through his pockets, and for one stomach-lurching moment thought that he might have been stupid enough to leave his wand on the hill again, before his fingers connected with the polished handle. Running through the motions again without the incantation or mental command made him feel self-conscious and slow.

"Your wand isn't going to escape if you let go," Larch told him dryly. "Relax, hold it lightly. If you duel like this, then you will find yourself with a cramped hand, and it will cripple you."

Harry sighed slightly and repeated the motions.

"There," Larch pointed, moving over to him to tap the length of wood. "That part – the semi-circle. It has to be vertical, not horizontal."

Harry frowned dropping his hand to his side. "Why? What difference does it make?"

"All the difference in the world," Larch replied calmly. "There are witches and wizards who can harness wandless, motionless magic, but they are few and far in between. What they can do with sheer power and intense mental discipline, the rest of us must compensate for with precision."

Harry's temper flared. "Yes," he replied tersely, "but _why_? Why are gestures special? Why can't everyone do wandless magic? What does 'discipline' have to do with magic? You say all this stuff, but it doesn't explain _anything_!"

Larch chuckled, and Harry felt suddenly chilled and ridiculous for his outburst. "Each witch and wizard has an innate pool of magic accessible almost exclusively to them, and it resides ethereally, much like the soul. Gestures and vocalisation are simply the most efficient methods we have in the Western world to access that magic. Other countries use different methods, more suited to their unique skills," Larch told him, flicking his wand in several controlled motions towards the failed Transfiguration. It spun together before him until it rested, complete, on the tabletop. The dark haired man weighed it in his hand, considering. "There are of course many other forms of magic, but I'll not teach you them until you learn the basics."

Harry didn't do anything to restrain the scowl that transformed his face. How, he wondered, had the day gone from gloriously sunny and pleasant to dark so quickly? He remained silent, staring sourly at the goblet that had been transfigured so effortlessly.

"You're a Master at Transfiguration?" he asked with effort, remembering what Larch had told him on the first day.

The older man smiled infuriatingly. "I could be, but I chose not to take my Mastery examination. A Mastery ultimately means nothing but an advertisement of your talents to everyone around you."

Harry frowned, distracted. He could understand that, a little bit, but part of him still puzzled over it. Recognition for something he had _really_ done, something he was skilled at, was his dream. To be recognised for innate talent or hard work, rather than for an incident that occurred when he was still a babe. How could anyone throw that away?

"I guess it's not so clever to do that nowadays," he admitted grudgingly.

"No." With a few casual flicks of his wand the transfigured goblet was reversed, and a small, battered leaf lay on the table. "Try again, with the corrections."

It took Harry roughly fifteen minutes to master the spell, and about ten of them were spent trying to overcome his irritation at failing so miserably the first time. Still, he couldn't help but accept that the minor alteration solved his problems. Larch summoned several other base elements for him to experiment on, keeping to plain wood or metal, and soon Harry was forging a variety of objects out of them, from goblets to mirrors to liquids and food. He'd done the reading he'd been given on the particular properties of numbers, and he could now understand that ten was a minor significant number, used to stabilise and combine one object with another. Thus when he was asked to combine two of his transfigured objects into one, he was not so surprised to find he had little difficulty with it. There were some clashes, and he had to retreat up to his room to retrieve a textbook on the subject, but eventually he could effortlessly fuse almost of all of the various elements of the original transfigurations. It was beginning to bore him, mixing with the restlessness that seemed to swell and prickle inside his chest at being shut in the house again.

He twisted his wand again as he lay slumped across the table, frowning at a particularly stubborn piece of sapphire and willing it to alter. It began to smoke softly.

"This won't change," he observed finally.

"What do you think it is?" Larch asked him without looking up from the cauldron.

"What?" Harry asked, confused. He wondered whether the man hadn't heard him properly.

"What do you think that little stone is?" he repeated slowly, almost patronisingly.

Harry's brow creased in consternation. "I…I was trying to make sapphire."

"And have you ever seen a sapphire?" Larch asked pointedly.

"No."

Larch raised a brow at the coloured stone in his hand. "Then that will remain a lump of coloured glass."

For a long moment Harry stared at the little blue stone before dropping it carelessly back to the table with a light clatter. He had a sneaking suspicion that Larch had known exactly what his problem was for some time, and it irritated him that he hadn't pointed it out. He could have already passed this stage! As he thought about what Larch had said, it suddenly clicked in his mind why McGonagall used so many varied creatures and objects in demonstrations. If the class _saw_ what they were meant to be transfiguring, then they had a far better chance. Why else would they use obscure species of Birds of Paradise or outrageously complicated snuff boxes? He wondered if it was a display of her own peculiar sense of humour.

"So I have to study different transfiguration elements as well as the spells?" he asked wearily.

"The ones you think you are likely to use," agreed Larch. "If you ever want to produce permanent transfigurations, or even effective temporary ones, then yes. Anyone who wants a Mastery in Transfiguration is absolutely required to know at least a thousand different substances and be able to transfigure them with ease."

Harry groaned, burying his head in his hands. "I'm not about to be a Master at anything," he mumbled despondently.

"Then it will be a shame to see that potential go to waste."

Surprised, Harry raised his head, brushing his fringe out of the way. He winced as his fingers trailed across the scab that covered the cut on his forehead. "You think I could become a Master at something?"

"Surely you wondered that I concentrated so much on your Transfigurations?" Larch asked, gazing at him through thick purple fumes. Harry shivered a little as he engaged his stare, reminded of the first time they had met.

"I didn't…" he took a breath, "I wasn't really thinking about it." Truly, he'd been busier fantasising about getting into the Dark Arts section in the library.

"Now isn't the time to concentrate on revenge." Which, he reflected, apparently hadn't been lost on his host.

Harry swallowed slightly. "I know," he said quietly. "I can't even hope to knock one of them unconscious, let alone kill them." He laughed humourlessly. "Hell, I don't even know who their murderers are!" He felt something cold and hysterical bubbling up in his chest, and forced it back down as best he could. He couldn't afford to break down, even though at that moment he felt as if he were held together with only a few bits of string and plasters, bursting at the seams. Talking of revenge only made him want to start learning spells and attacks all the more, and gaining a Mastery in Transfiguration seemed to be some idealised pipe-dream in the far distant future.

Larch remained silent.

Harry caught his eye sharply. "You know who did it, don't you," he said after a long pause. A statement of fact – he was sure of it.

"There is far more tied up in your friends' murders than you might think," his host said quietly. There was something soft in his voice that unnerved Harry more than if he'd shouted it.

"Tell me," he demanded. "Your friend Croaker must have told you. Its probably common knowledge – 'Friends of Boy-Who-Lived Murdered in Home' splashed across the front of the Daily Prophet!"

Harry's eyes flicked back and forth between the blank grey pair in front of him, hoping to spot some trace of emotion, something that might give him a hint in the right direction, a sign of which buttons to push to get his answers. Nothing. It infuriated him.

"Tell me!" he shouted, slamming his palm into the tabletop. All he could think of, suddenly, all he knew was that they'd been killed and this man knew who had done it. "You sick bastard! Why won't you answer me?" he exploded, all his built up frustration pouring out. "Tell me! Stop sitting there and being fucking _silent_! You _know_ who did it! What…what right do you have to keep this from me?" Harry fumed, but something flickered in his host's eyes, something that he could latch onto, and a spitefulness rose in him because of it. "Maybe you're guilty," he hissed through his teeth, suddenly aware that he was standing when he hadn't been moments before. "Maybe you have some petty loyalty to whoever did it, and you're protecting them? Hell, maybe you did it and it's been right under my nose the whole time!" he panted. "It'd be such fucking irony, wouldn't it? The man I want has been teaching me all along, telling me I can get a Mastery!"

"Sweet Merlin," Larch snarled at him, the statuesque quality of his face moulding into something far more alive, more vicious. Harry unconsciously shrank back. "Are you such an ignorant brat to think that I wouldn't have killed you straight off it that was the case? Perhaps I would have told you if it were as simple as a few murders?"

Harry glared at him furiously. "They weren't just 'simple'!" he shouted, ashamed to feel the hot prickle of tears in his eyes. This wasn't the place to cry about them! "They were my friends!" he protested lamely. He couldn't bring himself to let go of his anger and protests, even though he felt like a dog that continued to worry its prey even though it was already dead.

Larch seemed to hold himself back from snapping again, and instead closed his eyes. Harry could almost see him praying for patience. "When you've learnt to keep a hold on your anger then you can come and speak to me. Get out."

Harry felt as if he were boiling beneath the fragile surface of his skin, but he was in enough of a frame of rational mind still to realise that stamping out of the room and slamming the door behind him would make him regret it later, however satisfying at the time. "Fine," he said coldly. Gathering his things with a flick of his wand, he left quietly, purposefully restraining the urge to spit out some childish retort.

In his room, behind the privacy of several silencing spells, Harry screamed in impotent anger.

He knew that there was only one way for him to get to the bottom of it all, to find out his friends murderers, to learn how to fight – he had to work until Larch let him into the Dark Arts section, until he released the whole truth. Merlin, Harry was so tired of half-truths and hints of things. For once, why couldn't someone tell him everything, give him answers? Some part of his brain snidely reminded him that perhaps there were reasons that he wasn't told everything; after all, he'd been manipulated masterfully by Voldemort in the past year. But it chafed against him that he'd pretty much been given one viable choice. On the one hand, he could leave and try and search for revenge as he had been intending to in the beginning, and end up caught again, used as a figurehead or a soldier. Everyone would be tugging from different sides, and he'd be torn apart. Or, he could stay where he was, learn at a rate that was always not fast enough and have to exercise his patience more than he ever had in his life.

_I've already thought over this_, he grumbled inwardly, sullenly punching the wall behind him. Distracted, he paced the floor, trying to calm down.

_This foolishness is why I got myself caught in the Department of Mysteries. It's why all this happened in the first place,_ he reminded himself. _I have to stop thinking like a child, stop acting like a child, and just knuckle down and work at it all._

"Come on Harry," he muttered. "Everyone wants to play games? Then you just have to join in and play along."

With a sigh he dropped onto the bed and rubbed his temples. He needed to calm down, and then he needed to speak to Larch. Perhaps if he played it right he might even have an explanation.

* * *

Curls of smoke rose gently up into the air, twining around each other. Su sat crouched on top of the high stool behind the counter, bare feet flat against the wood. Shifting slightly, she took another drag on her pipe and blew out a thick ring of smoke, then another smaller one through it. She'd opened the little shop at five thirty and forty minutes later there still hadn't been one shopper poking their head round the door. All was as it should be.

Since her parents had opened the shop in Wizarding Britain, it hadn't moved premises. For thirty-seven years the cramped little house in Alchemic Alley had been theirs, and the only things shifting were the contents. What the increasingly suspicious keepers of the shop hierarchy didn't know were the powerful magicks at work. She snorted. Because none of them had bothered to travel or learn the magic of other countries, they were left confounded by their humble home. _They_ wouldn't be kicked out like their neighbours.

Humming a little, she took another puff on the pipe, this time blowing out a different shape, more defined. She could almost make it out, solidifying as slowly as dripping wax, when she was distracted by the tinkle of the bell above the door and a man entered, disgust etched on his face as he looked haughtily around the room. Su mirrored the expression openly.

Noticing her, he approached swiftly and set a hand down on the counter with a light 'thunk' from his rings. He was overdressed, she thought, with gold and jewels practically dripping from his hands.

"Something to prove?" she asked nastily, blowing a stream of smoke into his face and flicking her eyes to the rings. His face scrunched up, insulted.

"Bring the orders," he barked out. Too harsh, Su thought as she slipped from her stool. He was too harsh all round, like he'd wrapped himself in sandpaper.

He followed her wordlessly into the back of the store, grimacing even further at the mess it was. Whilst Su wove easily through the piles of papers, books and other paraphernalia, he stumbled and his cloak caught on a nail. As he tugged it angrily away a slight ripping sound echoed through the room. Her guest hissed in anger.

"You'll pay for that hedge-witch."

Su flipped her braided hair over her shoulder in a display of carelessness and began to roll up the streamers that she'd laid across the far bench. This peacock of a man didn't exactly pose a threat.

"If these don't work-" he began menacingly.

"They will," she interrupted. "Who you're working for should know what to do with them, and if they don't? They're fools for ordering them."

The man seemed to freeze up for a moment. "You think you're funny, hedge-witch? Huh? My Lor-Master," he corrected clumsily, "shouldn't be spoken about like that. He's more powerful than you'll ever be able to understand," he hissed out.

Su smiled and levitated the first bundle of streamers into his arms, which he caught fumblingly. The man wasn't exactly the brightest of the bunch, and was probably delegated to errand running. He'd given her a pretty good idea of exactly who he was working for too, but business was business.

He mumbled something unintelligible as she rolled and tied the next streamer. What was his name again? Catter…Carrot…_Carrow_, she remembered finally. He'd told her it when he placed the order as if it were meant to mean something important. She'd just looked at him blankly until he'd started fidgeting. This man was a sheep in wolf's clothing, swathed in all the expensive cloth and still a brain filled with mud.

"Wass' this?" he grunted, prodding one of the jars.

"Lion lung," Su snapped out without looking. "Don't touch."

"Why not, princess?" he crooned. "Scared I might be hurt?"

Su stopped herself from snorting again. So she'd gone from 'hedge-witch' to 'princess' all of a sudden? "I still want the money, and these out of my home," she said shortly.

"Little bitch," he muttered resentfully. "Don't talk to me like that, or you won't _get_ any money! Be lucky to escape alive when I'm done with you…"

Su sent another bundle of scrolls whizzing his way, and amused herself in watching him make a grab at them. One dropped to the floor and he had to stoop to pick it up, crushing some of the delicate edges of the streamers. Su smiled. She was sure that he'd ruined at least one of the patterns permanently, and the order had been for them to be configured in such a way that they worked together. If she was lucky, then this man's incompetence had just bought her another order.

"This is the last," she said, holding up the sting-bound roll of paper. "The master copy. If you break this then you'll be in trouble."

She flipped it towards him, and he crushed several more of the scrolls in his arms as he struggled to catch it one handed. Su hid the vindictively satisfied smile that threatened to break out over her face.

_Stupid cur,_ she cursed him inwardly. His own stupidity would come back to bite him in the arse when he met up with his 'master'.

Dragging a scrap of paper from under one of the piles on the bench, she scribbled down the total prices, frowning as she concentrated on the sums. She'd never been very good at Arithmancy, really.

"They are 313 galleons, 13 sickles and 7 knuts," she calculated, turning enough to see the man's eyes bug out.

"That's outrageous!" he exclaimed, tripping a little as he juggled to scrolls to reach his money bag. "These worthless little scraps of parchment aren't worth more than twenty, if even that."

Su laughed. He was in a very unfortunate position, and he hadn't even considered it properly yet. "Then explain to your master why his scrolls are dust when you return!"

Carrow's eyes widened and then narrowed spitefully as he processed her threat. "Little bitch," he repeated bitterly, throwing down his money pouch on a nearby table. He seemed reluctant to put the streamers down anywhere, as if they might disappear into the mess and become lost, but he seemed equally uncomfortable at the idea of letting Su count the money out. She hopped onto the bench and swung her legs back and forth, watching the show. Finally he seemed to remember he was a wizard, and levitated the scrolls just as she had done to begin with. Reaching into the Gringotts moneybag, he withdrew the galleons and slammed them onto the table. Several of them scattered and rolled off the edges. With a flick of her wand, Su verified that they were all there and summoned them to her.

"Goodbye Mr. Carrow," she said simply, directing him towards the door and following him back out. He sneered at her and levitated the little bound packages out of the door. Su smiled and took up her position once again, perched high on the stool. Absently, she lit her pipe.

* * *

As it turned out, Harry wasn't able to speak to Larch at all. Slumped on his bed after his argument he'd fallen asleep, and when he awoke the house was empty. When he worked with Dippy in the greenhouses the following morning, she'd told him that 'Master Larch sir tells Dippy to say that he will be out until the evening, and that Harry sir is to read the books the Master has left in the library'.

This had left Harry sprawled out on his stomach in the garden, nose stuck deeply in a book of pureblood customs and etiquette. Not exactly how he'd planned to spend his Saturday. He'd been delegated about half of the book to read, and he was doubtful whether he'd finish even that. The tome was obviously meant as something of a bible for young pureblood heirs, the corners worn from hands turning the pages hundreds of times.

He skipped briefly over dinner etiquette, which involved a lot of diagrams on the correct presentation of forks, and browsed through until something caught his eye. The pictures he passed were all old fashioned and stylised, reminding him of old medicinal drawings, and the page that finally captured his attention was crammed with diagrams of…cuffs? Harry squinted at the page, trying to figure out the various embroidered designs on them.

"'Below lies the mark of the traditional low ranking Auror," Harry read out. "Observe how the detail on the cuff is simplistic, the crossed stitches either side of the seam representing rank and experience…'"

He trailed off, bemused. People were actually meant to recognise this sort of thing in polite conversation or the shaking of hands? Apparently there was a good deal of subtle manoeuvring in power and status that he'd been unaware of. Had the Aurors he'd seen had embroidery round their cuffs? He couldn't remember. He thought he might have seen some on Tonks at one point, and maybe Moody, but he doubted either of them would stand by tradition so strongly.

"Who pays attention to the embroidery round cuffs anyway?" he mumbled to himself, flipping onto the next page, and the next…and the next. There were at least seven pages filled with different detailed drawings just for a witch or wizard's occupation! He realised, moving on, that that didn't even cover those who weren't employed or lived off their own acquired wealth.

Groaning, Harry turned back to the page that he'd finally got bored on, and continued to read. _The arrangement of forks it is_, he thought wearily.

He wondered vaguely why Larch would want him to read something like this in the first place, before the answer hit him upside the head. Of course he'd need to know this stuff, he thought, if he ever wanted to be regarded as an equal in pureblood circles, and he didn't fool himself that blood didn't count in the wizarding world. Almost all of the politicians he had met had been pureblood or at least half-blooded. Mr. Weasley, a pureblood, Percy, a pureblood, Fudge, a half blood advocating pureblood morals, Madame Bones, a pureblood, the Crouches, purebloods, Lucius Malfoy, a pureblood, Arnold Peasgood, a pureblood. The list went on. It made _sense_. If he ever got in trouble, he'd need to have an idea of wizarding traditions and law. If he ever needed to get in the good graces of a dogmatic pureblood, he'd need to know what to say. At the very least, he'd need to know what kind of effect they had on the wizarding world.

The chapters on wizarding families intrigued him in a vague sort of way, not to mention gave him an explanation for Mrs. Weasley's outrage at Bill's long hair. Hair, it seemed was some kind of status symbol in wizarding world. To Harry, it all seemed rather silly and girly. He'd never had hair longer than the bottom of his ears, and it seemed to remain that way without ever needing a hair cut. Harry couldn't think of one time he'd worried about his hair in the past year or so except to try and flatten down the bits at the back that stuck up. He privately suspected that part of the reason no one ever seemed to take him seriously was that no one would respect a boy whose hair was so ridiculous.

On the other hand, it explained why so many of the men he saw had long hair. Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy, _Sirius_. His heart clenched slightly, but he pushed the thought away. Whatever had happened had happened, and either Sirius was safe…or he wasn't. _Back to the hair_, Harry thought. It was traditional for a man of wealth and leisure to grow his hair long, and was acceptable even if they weren't the designated successors of the family. As the heir, it was a gesture of respect to have shorter hair, in deference to their father and the Master of the Family. When they inherited said title, they would grow their hair longer. The way Harry saw it, Bill's long hair was a bit like giving the finger to the pureblood aristocracy, as they were both poor and working, and Arthur Weasley was still very much alive.

In contrast, a poorer man, or one who did a job where long hair was a liability kept their hair short. Arthur Weasley kept his hair short, and Harry wondered briefly whether it was because he didn't care for tradition, or because he was adhering to pureblood customs. Harry remembered that Remus had short hair too. Of course, the image of Arthur Weasley of Remus with long hair was deeply disturbing.

There were a whole lot of other descriptions of hair length and whether it was tied back or not that had Harry rather worried. If the wizarding world's self-proclaimed 'elite' were this obsessed with their hair then…well. It didn't bode well. Girls, he noticed, had just as many different styles as men did, but without the 'poorer' category. Apparently women who worked or had fortunes didn't matter nearly as much as the men, which had Harry raising his brows at. The wizarding world seemed very much to him to be stuck around Elizabethan times in many ways, something he was sure Hermione would have a good deal of things to say about. Girls up to the age of eleven could have hair any length they wanted, however, when they started their education they usually had it cut. At just below shoulder length it was an indication that they were too young to be married. Longer hair denoted that they were available for marriage, and short hair of any sort actively discouraged it. When they married, or were proclaimed Mistress of the Family, then there were specific and complicated ties detailed, the page showing many diagrams of ways (as it seemed to Harry) to pile all their hair on top of their heads.

Harry tried to remember how many girls in his year had hair like this, but had a difficult time remembering one from the other. In the end, he thought, it didn't matter because they had probably all grown up and gone their separate ways now. The whole thing seemed rather archaic.

To his surprise, he did remember that Pansy had kept her hair short. He was sure that she even left it loose, and looking up the signs in the book before him, he realised that she was practically proclaiming her unavailability. Funny. He and Ron had always joked that she had probably been engaged to Draco from birth, in which case she'd have had middling hair tied back with a clasp of her family crest or symbol of her house. He guessed that a lot of the information in the book was useless nowadays, and had been for centuries, what with Muggleborns entering the wizarding world.

For the first time, he realised just what a hoard of customs the pureblood elite were trying to protect with their protests and laws. He recognised that if one were raised with this it would become necessary – you would look for the signs without thinking, understand how people were operating and who was doing what with who. With Muggleborns…well, he reasoned, not all of them were like Hermione. It must be like walking around blind for children like Draco.

Not to say that he respected the evil bastards that the wizarding aristocracy appeared to be, but he had a little more understanding. He delved back into the book with renewed vigour.

Following all the information about hair, which Harry had a good laugh about, were various styles of dress, introductions, mannerisms, handshakes, correct eye contact, bows, seating arrangements, and many other ways to act like the perfect young heir or master or mistress or sister or cousin or host. It all seemed perfectly absurd.

Harry finished the chapters he was supposed to read by evening, and had practised several spells and eaten dinner before Larch made a reappearance.

His only warning was a loud sound like a thunderclap that he distantly recognised as someone breaching the wards at high speed before his host collapsed in the middle of the dining room in a bloody heap.

Harry jumped from his seat with a startled yelp, darting over to the man who was sprawled haphazardly over the floor. He was twisting and jerking where he lay. Seeing him up close, he concluded that he was a complete mess. Blood oozed from a particularly nasty wound across his cheek, and there were several more cuts and scrapes across his face. However, Harry was sure that that wasn't the extent of the injuries, judging by how pale he was. He noticed several more gashes across his arms and something dark and sticky covering the pale green of his waistcoat.

"Fuck," Harry swore after a moment of standing frozen by him. "Dippy!" he called frantically, and was relieved when another 'crack' signalled the appearance of the elf.

"What can Dippy do for Harry-" the elf broke off her cheerful greeting as it caught sight of Larch. "Master!" she cried, scurrying to his side, wringing her little hands. "Harry sir must help the Master!" she said forcefully, spinning and jabbing him in the stomach with a long finger.

"Fine!" Harry exclaimed, eyes still glued on his host. "But I don't know what to do…"

"Dippy knows," she said sensibly, raising her hands in the air. As she did so, Larch rose too, and together they headed towards the stairs, up the house towards the attic. All Harry could think along the way was that he had spent the past day wasting his time on pureblood etiquette when he could have been learning healing spells. _I don't know any healing spells_, he chanted in his head,_ and Larch is dying. I don't know any healing spells, and he's dying. _A selfish little voice at the back of his head told him just where he'd be if his host went and died on him, and he didn't like the prospect at all.

"Dippy cannot take Harry sir into his room," she said apprehensively, after a moment of trying the doorknob. "We will go to Harry sir's room."

Harry wasn't about to protest, even if it meant that his bed would probably be covered in blood and mess. It most certainly wasn't the most important thing at the time.

"Fine," he forced out finally, hurrying ahead. "Just…hurry."

Laying down Larch's battered form on the bed, Dippy disappeared promptly to get bandages and, Harry presumed, healing potions. Hadn't they been talking only yesterday of blood replenishing potions? But he wasn't sure he could even remember what they looked like… Panicked, he paced back and forth a few times. What was he supposed to do? _Take the clothes off first; see how bad the wounds are_, he told himself. But what if the clothes were all that was stopping the blood flow? Wasn't he supposed to press down on wounds to prevent more blood loss? He couldn't remember.

Dippy reappeared with a snap of sound, her face hidden behind a pile of medical supplies, bandages and books. These she quickly dumped onto the bedside table, muttering worriedly to herself.

"Oh, Master Larch is hurting himself again…hurting himself bad," she said. Harry's eyes bugged.

"He's done this before?" he blurted out. Dippy cast him a disapproving glance, and with a clap of her hands banished Larch's clothes.

Harry couldn't help but stare, and not at his nakedness. The man's body was covered from the neck down in concentric patterns, runes and symbols glaring out at him in a dull, bloody red. They spiralled over his chest and the tops of his shoulders, getting progressively smaller as they reached the centre of the spiral. One darker rune ran directly down his sternum, whilst other patterns branched across his ribs. Beneath them he could make out scars, some obviously from old wounds, whilst others seemed to have been carved into his skin with the same precision as the runes. It made his eyes swim. Why would anyone do this…unless…he remembered somebody saying that Voldemort had undergone numerous rituals…but they hadn't been anything like this! He'd seen the man rise again, seen all of his unnaturally pale, exposed flesh. This was nothing like that. Shaking his head, he tore his eyes away and forced himself to concentrate on the wounds.

There was a deep slash across his biceps that oozed blood, but seemed to have begun to coagulate. There were several deep scratches and burns, and in the middle of his chest a wound that was obviously still open and deeply in need of binding. Occasionally he would writhe, and when Harry reluctantly put his hand to his skin he felt heat coming off of him in waves.

"The Blood Boiling curse," he muttered absently. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck."

_How could you be so stupid Harry!_ He chastised himself as he accepted a bandage from Dippy. _You've been subjected to this curse, and yet you never bothered to learn the counter-curse! How dim can you be?_

"Dippy, I need you to check the library for a counter for the Blood Boiling curse," he told the elf urgently. "I can deal with this, but go."

Dippy looked at him once with wide eyes and then disappeared once more. Harry turned to Larch, using his wand to levitate the man and wrap bandages tightly round the wound across his chest and those on his biceps. That done, he slowly turned him so that he could examine his back.

Harry hissed in sympathy at the sight. The skin all down it was a myriad of burns, blistered and red. He thought that some of these might even be permanent. Thankfully, he'd had enough experience with the dragons in the First Task to recognise burn salve from among the potions Dippy had brought up, and he applied it liberally, breathing a sigh of relief as the redness mostly faded. Turning him back over however his satisfaction was short lived; blood was already soaking through the white of the bandages, turning them crimson. Harry swore again.

The books Dippy had brought to him were ones on healing magic. One of them he discarded immediately as being far too high above his level, but the other looked like it might at least have something he could use. Raising his wand, he cast a charm that Hermione had forced them to learn after hours of searching books for one thing. The pages fluttered by, and after several tries and various wordings, he located a charm designed to force blood to coagulate.

Scanning over the page, he tried to calm himself and take in the instructions as clearly as he could. Finally, sure that he had it right, he removed the bandages and placed his wand to the wound.

"Coagulatis," he said clearly, and was relieved to see the blood stop immediately. Then Larch began to twitch. Harry cursed vehemently again as he looked back at the warnings in the book and realised what he'd done. _All _his blood had coagulated.

"Fuck!" Harry shouted again, flipping to the next page to find the reverse spell, barely scanning the instructions before performing it. The man would _die_ if he didn't do something, and he'd have killed him.

"Anti-Coagulatis!" he cried, jabbing his wand at the prostrate form of his host.

Blood started again, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. Hesitantly, he tried the spell again, this time from the recommended distance of a metre. The red streams from the wound slowed, then stopped at a trickle. Harry decided it would have to do. After all, he wasn't about to risk getting it wrong again.

He was in the middle of reapplying the bandages when Dippy appeared again with a small pop.

"Dippy has found it Harry sir!" she cried shrilly, holding the book up for him to see. Harry grabbed it instantly and flipped to the right page. In the background he could hear Dippy lamenting his work, and tore his attention from the counter-curse in time to see her undoing his bandages again.

"Hey!" he called out. "What are you doing?"

"Harry sir has not put on the pastes!" Dippy retorted angrily. "Master Larch sir will get ill from his hurts without them!"

Harry stared at her for a moment before returning to his book with a vague nod. It made sense. He just wished he'd thought of that in the first place. Carefully this time, he went over the counter-curse. He knew well enough that the symptoms were manageable for the time being. The Blood Boiling Curse was not as bad as the Cruciatus. It could be managed. But how long had it been already? How long had it been before Larch had managed to arrive? How much _blood_ had he lost already?

Frowning, he reread the instructions for the counter until he was sure that he had taken everything in. He needed to get this right in one go, something that only usually happened in life or death situations with him. _Well, _he thought grimly,_ this is pretty much life or death. Or at least sanity. Just not for me this time._

"Sanguis Defervesco," he intoned. For the longest moment nothing happened, and Harry bit his lip in worry, and then Larch relaxed, his disjointed twitching ceased altogether, and his breathing gradually slowed to shallow breaths rather than heavy pants. Harry slumped back into his chair in utter relief.

"Harry sir is not done!" Dippy reprimanded him, and Harry groaned.

"I know," he murmured finally, "sorry."

Dippy gave him a stern look, but seemed appeased. "The Master is bandaged and not cursed anymore, but Harry sir must give him potions – Dippy doesn't know which ones she should use. Master Larch is never hurt this bad before, not only with Dippy to help."

Harry nodded and summoned the medical pack over to him. He was rather glad that Larch had set a medicine bag aside at all, although he wondered what that said about the life he led that he was expecting to get hurt. Rifling through them, he located a standard healing potion that he'd been given enough times to recognise it, a pain-killing potion and, after much hesitation, something he was pretty sure was a blood-replenishing potion. He wished Larch had had enough foresight to label the damn things.

He stumbled a little as he made his way over to the bed, regarding Larch askance. The man's face was pinched with the remnants of pain, and dark shadows hung under his eyes that Harry was sure hadn't been there the day before. Dippy had drawn the blanket up over his hips so that he was decently covered once again, but Harry could still see the runes stretching all across his body. It wasn't that Harry was embarrassed at seeing him naked, after all the Quidditch showers were public and he shared a dorm with four boys, but something about the pattern of runes bothered him. Not to mention it made him wince to imagine how much pain it would have caused to have them done _there_. Some of them looked very much like Muggle tattoos, faded under the skin, but they shifted and moved, and already they were growing darker from the red he'd seen earlier, until they became completely desaturated before his eyes, thick, smoky grey spirals beneath his skin.

"Harry sir!" Dippy called out, snapping him out of his reverie. Something about them had transfixed him, maybe the concentric swirls, or the colours…

He tore himself away with difficulty, leaning forwards to lift an eyelid and examine Larch's grey eyes. They stared vacantly out at him, pupils wide and dilated. Sighing, Harry opened his mouth and uncorked the first potion, then paused. How exactly did one get an unconscious person to swallow something? Of course, he knew in theory – tip it in and sort of…press their throat to make them swallow, but the reality was quite different. After some struggling, he finally managed to get the liquid down his gullet, and several minutes later he had done the same with the following potions. He just hoped that magical potions didn't interact as badly as some Muggle medication he knew of.

Drawing away, he was pleased to see the cuts on his face knit themselves together, and the array of bruises down his side fade away.

"I think…" Harry began cautiously, "I think he's okay."

Dippy watched him with wide eyes as he retreated back to his chair and massaged his forehead. He had a killer headache developing, and his heart was still pounding from the shock of it all. "Merlin," he murmured, "what the hell did he do?"

"Dippy does not know all of it sir," the house elf replied meekly. Gone was the authoritative creature that had bossed him about a moment ago. "Master Larch didn't tell Dippy everything, but Dippy knows that he wasn't going to sell his potions today. Dippy thinks that Master Larch sir knew he was going into a battle."

Harry blinked. "No offence, I'm very flattered that you'd tell me…but why did you?"

Dippy looked at him sadly. "Dippy doesn't like it when Master Larch hurts himself, and she thinks that maybe Harry sir will be able to stop him."

Harry blinked at her. "Sorry?" he said eventually. "How would I be able to stop a fully grown wizard who could likely kill me in under a minute if he chose?"

"Dippy thinks that perhaps Harry sir could go with him," the house elf ventured. Harry just stared.

"If he came back like this," he indicated the torn up man before them, "what chance do I have? I'd just get in the way."

"But that is just the point sir!" Dippy exclaimed, leaning forwards and clasping her hands together. "Master Larch would have to protect you, and he would have to leave sooner and not get so hurt!"

Harry shook his head in bemusement. "Faulty logic. He'd probably only get more hurt with me along." _Not to mention that I'm not at all interested in any fight like the one he's just left_, Harry thought silently.

The house elf wilted, as if she hadn't thought of that. "Dippy wishes the Master wouldn't hurt himself," she murmured forlornly. "No good for him."

She turned and seemed about to leave when Harry called out. "Wait!"

"Yes Harry sir?" she asked inquisitively.

"Do…" he hesitated and gestured vaguely at the runes. "Do you know anything about the…patterns?"

Dippy hissed, and Harry started back, alarmed. "Dippy cannot speak of that Harry sir, nor would she if she could. Dark things," she mumbled. "Harry sir must not go poking about trying to find anything out!" she cautioned. "Master Larch will not be happy with him!"

Harry nodded in agreement as she vanished, even if he had no intention of holding to his promise. Things were just too interesting for him to leave be. He sat for awhile, watching his host to make sure that he was still alive. With the way his skin had become chalky and almost cold to the touch after the curse, he would have thought him dead, were it not for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. With a frown he realised that he would probably have to stay and keep watch over him – himself or Dippy that is.

On the other hand, that gave him valuable time to commit the runes to memory. Attempting to be quiet about it, Harry summoned a few sheets of parchment and a quill, and dragged his chair a little closer to the bed. Larch shifted in his sleep, and Harry bit his lip. He had a feeling that the runes were rather personal, and a little flash of guilt passed through him as he began to copy them down. Then again…his curiosity would never let him be if he didn't find out what they meant.

He copied down the largest one that ran down his sternum. It seemed to be a centre for the rest of the patterns and was the darkest, nearing black. The reddish colour had faded completely from them, and as they spiralled out from the central rune they faded, occasionally darkening at points over the shoulders, elbows and hands.

_Hands_, Harry noted with surprise. It was a wonder he hadn't seen them before, which told him as well as he needed to know that they had been under some sort of disguise. There were darker runes atop is knuckles and at every joint. Larger ones covered his kneecaps, he noticed lifting the covers slightly and sketching them down. A long string of dense black shapes ran down his spine, when he levitated him high enough to see underneath.

Then beneath those that he guessed had been tattooed on, were the scars. He could barely make them out, but some were deeper than others, visible if he looked closer.

In the end, his sheets of parchment were covered on all sides with quick sketches of them and hasty labels to say where they had been on his body, and whether they were tattoos or scars. Larch shifted again, and Harry twitched nervously, tucking the parchment into a pocket.

"Larch?" he called quietly. The man didn't wake. Harry leant back, relieved. "Dippy?"

The house elf reappeared with a pop. "What can Dippy do for Harry sir?"

"Can you keep watch over him?" he asked, indicating the still form of his host. "Just make sure he keeps breathing, and if his condition changes then call me, okay?"

"Dippy was cleaning…but…if Harry sir needs to sleep she will watch Master Larch." Dippy bowed with a faint smile, and Harry left the room. He would rest for a bit, and then he'd take advantage of Larch's incapacitated state to look up the runes in the library.

* * *

Harry let out his breath in a rush. In front of him were pages of notes he had been making over the past two days whilst Larch lay bedridden. He'd sneaked up two more times when he was asleep to copy down more pivotal sigils from his skin, and the results were spread across the table. What he saw scared him, to say the least. Several were signs of the darkest magic, and he had been able to find only a scant few sentences on them. Others were part of an intimate and intricate connecting matrix of symbols that he couldn't fully decipher. However, over his studies he had come to understand a good deal more of what the man had written over his flesh, and he didn't like it. There was Darkness there, a lot of it, and the more aware he was the more it filled the air around him. As soon as he'd woken, Larch had ordered Dippy to levitate him to his rooms, but Harry had copied enough by then to work from, and he was uncomfortably aware of the oppressive purr of Dark magic around the house in a way he hadn't been before. It pressed at him, wound into his dreams, whispered things when he was about to fall asleep that he could almost hear but escaped him when he tried to focus on them.

Signs of strength, sigils of power, runes to call forth untamed wild magic and capture it in tendrils of the blackest things, and the scars…the scars Harry had been unable to place at all. They were so foreign to him that he couldn't recover even one symbol. Besides, they changed when he wasn't looking, shifted positions, until they seemed more to him a web of pale tissue that moved over his host's body than a set of scars as he would normally perceive them. Larch healed far faster than he should have. He was up and about, looking pale and sickly but very much better only a day after Harry looked over his findings and finally began to comprehend what he saw.

When Larch had moved out of his room, Harry began to hide his findings in his mattress. It was the obvious place to look, but because of that it was the least obvious. He'd already scoured the floor for loose floorboards like he'd used in the Dursleys house and his temporary Muggle accommodation, but failing that the next best thing was the mattress. He'd painstakingly cut along one of the edges nearest to the wall and slid his notes inside, partially sealing it so that he could access them when he wanted to. He wasn't so stupid as to put heavy protection spells over it; that would be like lighting a beacon in the fog, but he used just a tiny thread of magic to hold the seam closed. He didn't want Larch to find out how much he had discovered, not at all. He was sure that the repercussions would be great and unpleasant. He was sure he knew that he'd seen the tattoos, but he hoped that Larch hadn't yet guessed that he'd researched them.

Sitting on the cushioned window seat, looking out over the garden where he knew Larch was going through his morning exercises, slower now, paced to suit his injuries, Harry knew what step he was going to have to take if he wanted to get to the bottom of some of this, to discover who the man behind the façade was, what he was hiding. He attic where his host slept was barred from him. He could try the doorknob but he couldn't open it. The magic hummed around the room like a candle flame to moths in his newly awakened awareness. He just knew, could just _sense_ the power that protected it and the power that was contained within. He'd plan, he'd examine, he'd be cautious, but he'd crack it eventually.

Harry bit his lip ponderously. He would break into Larch's room and make sense of what he found as best he could. He'd solve the man.

* * *


	8. Blood Magic

**Chapter Eight: Blood Magic**

Bellatrix watched the man writhe below her impassively. His limbs twisted, contorted, she heard something snap. His arm hung weakly at his side and she restrained the urge to kick him. Her expression was ice, flat and emotionless, but a bubbling mix of feeling was swirling beneath the surface. Pleasure, rage, black joy, blinding faith. Her face morphed slowly into a wicked grin, the change as profound as any that her niece could perform. Specks of spittle hit the floor, small white pieces of foam contrasting the blood. Blood from his knuckles, blood from his grazed skin, blood from his bleeding nose, blood from his split eyebrow.

With a flick of her wand she ended the curse, leaning gently forwards to croon at him.

"Did poor widdle baby Carrow forget to handle his master's property carefully?" she mocked. The man gasped wretchedly and rolled over onto his side, broken arm slack behind him. She stepped purposely forwards, resting the weight of her foot on the joint. He screamed. "Poor widdle boy." Leaning forwards, she let one hand trail down his cheek, resting all her weight on his broken arm as she caressed his face, fingers tipped more with talons than nails. "You know I don't want to do this to you baby Carrow, but I just h-have to," she faked an emotional hitch in her voice. "For your own good."

He twitched violently, but she pressed more heavily down on his elbow. He screamed again, the sound trailing into a pathetic whimper. Leaning closer, she drew her lips up to his ear, holding his neck down with her hand in a practised gesture as she spoke. Only once had she slipped up, and her victim had cracked his skull sideways into hers, taking her by surprise. It hadn't happened again.

"Little boy, playing at being a proper pureblood. You'll remember to be more careful next time, won't you?" she whispered, so quietly that only he could hear it, and the numerous watching could only imagine what she was telling him. "_Lacero_," she hissed into his ear, the brief flash of red light only appearing for an instant before it impacted, her wand to his neck. He thrashed, and she held him still by the neck. The sounds he was making were delightful, she relished them, clinging on to them as long as she could, drawing them out in her mind and powering her curse to new levels. This was a high that couldn't be topped by anything, not love, nor hate, or sex. Orgasm wasn't as good as the thrill of Dark magic singing through her veins as it did what it was designed to: cause pain.

"Bella." She cut her spell off immediately, the smooth, dark tones of her master's voice pausing her. "Don't play too roughly with him." It was indulgent, and she smiled, violet eyes meeting crimson.

"Of course, my lord," she replied swiftly, bowing her head. She would protest nothing anymore, not one command by him. She'd learnt her lesson in the Department of Mysteries, she'd seen him value her, judge her, and, in her worst moment, find her wanting. He'd considered leaving her then, she thought. Leaving her for the Aurors and the old fool Dumbledore to deal with. It had scared her more than she was willing to admit.

"Dear Ancel, I think you'll exercise a little more care when I send you out again," her lord said softly, but his voice resonated around the room nonetheless. He sounded satisfied, and because of that she was pleased. She had pleased him. "You will return to the little witch and order another set of the Chartuli. I want you to pay close attention to her…ask her about her work and where she learnt it. Ask her about her family, and make sure you remember each of her answers, or what you have felt here will be considered a blessing compared to what you will experience if you fail me again. I will deal with you _personally_. And Ancel…I want to see evidence that you have exercised _some_ subtlety."

Bellatrix shivered at the sound of his voice. She could see Ancel's pupils contract sharply, then widen until they made his eyes seem almost entirely black. She didn't need to see the glazed look in them to know that her master had impressed his point directly into his mind. A moment later he gasped, air dragging across his raw throat in a rush of sound.

She smiled to see her work. With a last squeeze of his neck she stepped back, lightly falling into her position in the ranks. Looking out of the sea of dark robes, she felt part of the flock, swallowed by the feeling yet still unique among them. Safety in numbers, but she had never been one for safety. Her bloodlust, her madness and loyalty were what made her useful to the Dark Lord, to her master. She was the prize servant, part of the inner circle, feared by all but her lord himself. Lucius quailed before her threatening gaze. Rookwood skulked away from her like a lean dog, respectful and fearful. Rodolphus and Rabastan worshipped her. A goddess to her husband and her lover.

The Dark Lord looked on her with indulgent fondness. He understood her completely, so that she felt as if she were contained, curled, foetal, within his mind whenever she met his gaze. He saw every part of her and let her follow her whims where they led her. Torture? It was hers. A young Muggle girl to play with? If only she went out to fetch one for them all to enjoy. Favour?

If she earned it.

"Delmar." The order was all in the word. The younger Rosier stepped forwards, dropping to his knees. He had filled the gap that Evan had left adequately. She could remember the elder – always quiet, shrewd, lethal. He'd been quite the shoe-in for most favoured position in the Dark Lord's ranks, and she'd enjoyed his death. Delmar Rosier was similar, but took on more traits from his mother. He was heavier built, more ponderous, and not as quick in the mind as the elder was. It had pleased her greatly to discover this.

"My Lord," he murmured, bowing his head. Still, she had to admit, despite not being the smartest of them he had about him a quiet dignity. He was a true pureblood, lesser, but true. It was in his blood and his mind, and had been from a young age. She approved of it. Not like the fake that was Ancel Carrow.

The Carrows were like the Weasleys until a few generations back: poor and ill bred. They were purebloods, but had only been so for a comparatively short time. They made their bid for success with the first rise of the Dark Lord, going from skinflint mercenaries to ostentatious men and women of leisure. They also had far more incest in their family than Bellatrix wholly approved of. Amycus and Alecto for example. Both were the classic products of an incestuous relationship, and appeared to carry on the tradition. That was inviting weakness, to sully the line in such a way. Carefully controlled marriages between relations – cousins for example, were all very well because they promoted magical strength, kept the riches and name within the family. But siblings? She curled her lip in disgust. They were uncultured barbarians compared to most Ancient and Noble House of Black.

"How do your negotiations fare with the vampire clans?"

Delmar met her lord's eyes solemnly, and she restrained a stab of jealously. That privilege was only for the Inner Circle…but she was forgetting. Delmar had taken his father's place. He _was_ Inner Circle, she reminded herself.

"They are progressing well," he replied steadily. "They plan to send an emissary to us. The Count Drauseni, Earl Roth and the Countess Merkit have been tempted by your power. They discuss an alliance as we speak."

The Dark Lord made a satisfied noise, and Bellatrix bristled. "How are they to settle it?"

"My lord, they seem quite serious," Delmar replied, earnest. "They plan to settle the alliance with the joining of Blood Ties. I believe that they plan to pledge their youngest children to lay rest their grudges."

Bellatrix inhaled sharply, along with several others around her. She was familiar with alliances of Blood, and they were some of the strongest kind. If the three most powerful ruling forces in Transylvannia chose to ally with blood then they were pledging the unison of their clans and openly allowing intermarriages and relations. Each clan would establish two marriages from the line of the Born Vampires, descended from their clan leader, and the offspring from that arrangement would link the clans together. Since the child was precious to each side it, in theory, assured strong loyalty between them. To kill one was to kill the other.

"And how have they responded to your advances?" her master continued, a hint of something entering his voice. He was pleased, he was anticipatory. It riled her.

"Favourably," Delmar returned, without even a hint of smugness or hesitation. Bellatrix hated him for it. "Earl Roth remains aloof still, but both the Count Drauseni and the Countess Merkit consider you to be worthy of their loyalty. It has been a long time since the great wars, and they are thirsting for the blood of battles. With an offering to each they will undoubtedly join you."

"Very good," the Dark Lord said finally, and Delmar nodded once, without arrogance, merely acceptance. Why wasn't he grateful for her lord's favour, Bellatrix wanted to cry out, why wasn't he kissing the floor that her master had walked on with gratefulness? "Have you encountered anything of the opposing emissaries?" he continued.

"I have, my lord. I dispatched of one, a young woman from the Order, but her partner escaped me."

Bellatrix bit her lip in anticipation, hoping…

"You disappoint me Delmar. I have come to expect better things from you."

"I understand, my lord. I will do my best to eliminate the other."

_What! _Bellatrix all but screamed in her head, eager, almost panting for it, _no crucio? No punishment? His failures are worth pain! He should suffer for them!_ She gladly suffered for her failures, knowing she'd displeased her lord.

"I expect you to continue wooing the Earl Roth," her master told him thoughtfully. "If he refuses, then you are to gather allies from among the lower echelons of his clan. During your stay I expect you to curry favour and discover those who would work against him. Remove all memory of these plans when you are to meet with him, or he will grow suspicious and you…" he paused, and Bellatrix detected a hint of amusement in his voice that she knew few others would notice, "you will die," he finished with a flash of dark humour.

"As you wish, my lord," Delmar said, bowing deeply. With a flick of his hand, the Dark Lord had sent him back to his place in the circle.

"Lucius, Bellatrix, you will remain," her master said, his words an order for the rest to leave. Bellatrix felt a ripple run across her skin as she moved forwards, kneeling. This was the moment she had been waiting for, her own personal nirvana. Just her and Lucius, her lord's right and left hand. Lucius, on the right, dealt with the politics. Social manoeuvring was his forte; he wasn't made for being in the thick of battles. He was a superior dueller and fencer, but he faced it academically, driven by a need to exercise finesse and elegance rather than a need to win. Bellatrix was on the other hand, the left. She was the fighter, the fire, the death dealer. She fought in battles; she was built for wars. All the pureblood etiquette and social banter barely covered her true personality, left her bursting at the edges with a fierce flame. In a ballroom, she would think, I could kill everyone here. At a dinner she measured each of them in how many minutes they'd survive her fury.

"Lucius, tell me of the families I wish to see within my circle," her master said, voice beguilingly soft. Beside her, she saw Lucius struggle not to swallow. It was a nervous habit of his.

"All of them have been amenable to my suggestions when given the proper incentive," he replied smoothly. The voice of many years of practice, honed to a fine point, honey sweet, dripping poison into ears. The voice that had toppled Fudge, unsettled Scrimgeour, skilfully manipulated Peasgood. "Those in France are nearly all on our side, many of them had merely been waiting for us to extend an invitation. My son has shown considerable progress with their Minister. His wife has taken the head of the Spanish Law Enforcement under the Imperius, and she has turned several families to our side. The Romanos, the Rossis, the De Lucas and the Lorettis all swear fealty to you."

"And of those in the British Isles?" Poison, Bellatrix thought viciously, he's letting him dig his own grave.

"They have not been quite so forthcoming," Lucius said swiftly, trying to cover his mistakes. "The Scottish Circle have been quite recalcitrant, with the Aldridges leading the refusal. However, the Cowans and the McCrees have expressed an interest."

"And those in England?" Bellatrix turned slightly to watch Lucius, curious as to how he would try to avoid reparation for his failures.

"They," he paused, apparently thinking carefully over his next words. His brow beaded with sweat. "They have not responded as…enthusiastically as they might have."

"Then you will have to encourage them," her lord told the blonde darkly, warningly. "Lucius, if you continue to fail me then you will not appreciate the consequences. There is…of course, no need to remind you of your place with Unforgiveables - they are far too crude for you. You are intelligent, cunning, and above all ambitious, and that which satisfies the lower echelons does not do you justice. You need something else to remind you of your place, and within my grasp are several things that you treasure above all else. The Malfoy fortune, for one. Your first son, in my service. Your wife. Need I go on?"

"No my lord." It was a credit to him, Bellatrix reflected, that he didn't stumble over his words. His face didn't display any of his inner turmoil, but the small signs were there. He swallowed; eyes fixed firmly on the tiles before him as they knelt.

"Good," he hissed.

She could hear him moving, standing. She wanted so much to lift her head, admire his effortless grace and power, dripping from every movement, worship him with her eyes, but she too remained looking at the floor. There was the soft movement of his feet, bare on the stone like the feet of a god, bare since his resurrection, his _rebirth_. He stepped forwards, robes swishing at the edges of her view, one long fingered hand brushing over Lucius' head as he came to stand before them, then another trailing through her own dark hair, drawing a line down her cheek until his hand rested beneath her chin and he gradually drew her head up so that she was staring into his eyes.

"My beautiful Bella," he said softly, amused by something he saw in her eyes. A smile curled his lips. "So jealous too. Must I warn you that Delmar is out of your range of playthings? I still need him to bring me the vampires."

"No my lord," she replied quietly, transfixed by those red orbs, the colour of dried blood, the colour of death, "one word and I will not touch him."

He tutted vaguely. "Arrogant still I see, but not like Lucius is. Did you know that he tried to stage a coup, to usurp me after I first returned?" She heard the blonde make a faint choking sound in the background, but she never turned, never lost eye contact with him. Bellatrix drew in her breath sharply, but her lord continued on without waiting for an answer. "He failed, of course. It seems he is destined to fail. Lucius, my servant, embodies many of the qualities that I prize, and indeed, those that Slytherin himself prized, but in the end he is too ambitious, too proud to serve me effectively. It is in his nature to look always for the better option. It is the Malfoy way, the secret of their survival through these past centuries. In no other manner would a family be able to descend from the times of the Romans and remain with so unblemished a history. I cannot begrudge him his flaws, but he must be kept in line, he cannot be left for his own devices for too long, or he loses sight of his loyalty, forgets what power I command. Don't you Lucius?" he asked, turning languidly to face the blonde. "I had hoped that with the joining of Narcissa, a part of the Black family, that particular trait would be bred out. It was not to be so." He glanced back at Bellatrix. "Your sister, Narcissa has passed the age at which she may bear children, and that is a task best left fulfilled by Draco's wife. You too would have produced worthy children, were you able, but it seemed that Fate was working against me, for my dear Bella remains childless too. Of the Black sisters, only one other has produced an heir. Andromeda Black, your sister, who married the filthy Muggle, Tonks. Young Nymphadora has proved quite the opposition already, has she not?"

"I will bring you her dead body, my lord," Bellatrix told him vehemently, a little confused by his trailing monologue. It was building up to something that she was sure that she would not like.

"As much as it would please me, you may not," the Dark Lord replied easily, "although I will allow you to bring me her body. She is a half blood, sullying the proud name of Black, but with your cousin dead and the fortunes abandoned, there must be a viable heir and continuation of the line. Because of her unique condition she will be able to aid us in more ways than one, and as I understand it the pleasures of a Metamorphmagus are more than enough for any man." Bellatrix wanted nothing more in that moment than to destroy the little brat who had drawn her lord's attention from her. "So very jealous, my Bella," he murmured fondly. "I want her brought to me, alive, and her mind intact." His lips curved into a smile full of promises. "If you do well, then I may even let you play with her yet."

"Thank you, my lord," she replied, grateful as Delmar should have been, more grateful. He released her chin, and she sighed at the loss.

"I want to know of your search for the Potter impersonator," he said coldly, his entire manner changing in an instant. Bellatrix admired the abrupt transformation.

"I have heard from my sources that the New Ministry got to him first, but he has since escaped their hold," she told him, a fire coming alight in her as she had a chance to regale him with her efforts, her successes.

"Then he must be powerful, or have powerful associates," her lord mused. "I want to know his true identity Bella."

"Yes, my lord," she relied, bowing her head again. "I will discover all there is to know about him." She paused, mind suddenly coming to rest on an old and very promising idea, connecting it with her current orders. "My lord, with your declaration that you want my niece…I think I have found a way to bring her to you."

"Oh? Let me see what your delightful little mind has come up with then."

Her head raised, seemingly of its own volition, and she felt a brush of his mind against hers with a shudder.

The Dark Lord laughed suddenly, surprised pleasure in his voice. "You plan to evoke a blood curse on her," he observed. "Very well, you have my permission Bella, but do not fail me."

"Never, my lord."

Bellatrix rose smoothly, effortlessly. When she passed the newer recruits in the hall, she was pleased to see their eyes trail over her form with appreciation and then skitter away with fear. Even after all these years and more than one stint in Azkaban she had retained the deadly beauty that she was renowned for, along with her wild bloodlust. She was going to have fun with Nymphadora, the most fun she'd had in weeks. She'd ruin her, break her at her leisure, and then take the little half-blood under her wing. She'd _own_ the Metamorphmagus when she was done with her. Yes, she had so many plans for the girl.

* * *

Nymphadora paced swiftly through the aisles in the New Ministry library, searching for the wealth of knowledge associated with the Floo system. To this day the New Ministry still hadn't been able to find out how Bones and Scrimgeour had seized it. It was one of the better-laid plans of the small organisation. She clearly remembered when the Ministry split, and how the Old Ministry Auror crowd had come off worse in the matter of numbers. However, they'd made up with precise and crippling preparations, liberating a wealth of information over the months preceding the split, and destroying the rest as they foresaw their inevitable ousting. They'd had almost unanimous support from the Floo Offices, which meant that they were already well on their way to taking control of it. Seven years it had taken them to put forth their largest strike, but it had proved devastating. Despite the other three sides' scramble to subvert their control or find an alternate system that served the same function, there had been no successes.

Until now.

_How could Dumbledore gain possession of a Floo connection?_ Nymphadora snarled. Her anger must have shown on her face, because a young researcher twitched nervously and edged away from her. She smiled grimly; she still had enough of a reputation to scare them. As it turned out, the Black family's legendary battle madness hadn't bred out with her at all. It wasn't respect in their eyes, but fear was close enough. She didn't need their respect.

Had Dumbledore allied with the Old Ministry? _No_, she mused, snatching a tome off the shelf and flipping unceremoniously through it, _he couldn't have. Bones was set flat against him in the end, and Scrimgeour wouldn't agree without her approval and a damn good offer._ Unless…unless there had been a power shift between them. It was difficult to know. The Old Ministry was the most elusive and airtight of all the organisations. With the Floo system under their control, they were untraceable. They worked from behind the scenes. There was no structured code of members there – some people worked off favours in the political circles and influenced New Ministry law without even supporting them fully. They were insidious, dangerous.

She eyed the titles on the shelves, leaving the book she'd already opened where it was. None of them even hinted at the structure of the Floo system. They'd found their only supporters from the Floo Office with minds as blank as freshly washed plates after they'd taken over the Ministry building. Everything pertaining the Floo system was gone. All they were left with were books on its history, missing the occasional paragraph or word that had been meticulously cut out.

_Damn the Order, _Nymphadora cursed inwardly. She needed Colin to get her that information as soon as was possible. It was a matter of urgency. She'd provided him with the means, and he needed to make speed. From what she'd seen from his memories, they'd had that Floo up and running for around five months. In his memory she'd seen Moody say that their researchers had created a scrambler for the Floo monitoring, but she didn't fall for that. Colin had, but she knew it couldn't be that simple. There was always the possibility of leaks within a circle, and Dumbledore was too canny not to feed false truths out to his enemies that way. Granger couldn't have cracked what a Department of researchers hadn't all these years.

She signalled to a nearby researcher to pick up the pile of books she'd left and follow her. The girl hurried to comply, and Nymphadora smiled. If only her mother and the old coot could see her now. She was one of the few in the New Ministry with the unique position of drifting between several Departments and chains of power. They couldn't restrict her access, not when she could travel through their building like a gas in the air vents. She'd get anywhere with her rare talents. Instead, they'd put her in charge of several different things, and she picked and chose what she wanted to do, using anyone around her to delegate unwanted tasks to. She had _power_.

He girl placed the books on her desk with a bow and backed out of the room. Nymphadora sighed wearily as she observed the pile and pulled the first towards her.

First of all, she had access to the Spike Jumpers from the old Department of Mysteries. They tracked and placed magical signals all across Britain and Ireland. Of course, she only monitored the high level machines herself – there were grunts to do the rest. Then, there was a trained team for her disposal, more than ready to do as she commanded. All she had to do was bring in the unregistered magic users and send them to the lower levels to be tagged and interrogated. What she did with them the rest of the time was her prerogative. And all this, because she could bring the New Ministry information that it couldn't get anywhere else. She learnt things with her Metamorphmagus talents that no one else could; she could act any part, play any role. If a rich man's only weakness was his sickly son, then yes, she could change into that boy and look at him with pleading, tear filled eyes whilst he was interrogated. She got favours. She wheedled information. She spied

When trained in Occlumency and Leglimency, she was a formidable opponent.

The best part was that otherwise she was left to pursue her own vendettas. Any untoward behaviour was…overlooked.

With a sigh of pleasure she shifted into her favourite form. Unlike many assumed, a Metamorphmagus had no 'natural form'. Instead, during their Magical Maturation, they finally chose a small number that they felt most comfortable in, usually at least two in each sex. Nymphadora had stopped tripping over things as she adjusted and stopped shifting so dramatically, and now she moved with a feline grace that was could only have been born out of practice and many years of clumsiness.

Brushing the other books to the side, she reached the one that she had been most looking forwards to. The Hogwarts yearbook held a variety of pictures in it, but the one she wanted was under the carefully scripted name 'Hermione Granger'. With a hum of satisfaction, she shifted into her body, drawing on her memory of her in Colin's mind and the picture in front of her. She knew how to get at the boy now. He was _hers_.

* * *

"You're going to learn to duel."

Harry sat slumped into an armchair in the living room, worn out from his walk up to the hill and back to harvest more ingredients and feed the Sheepsbane. It had spooked him out more than somewhat to watch the little plants latch onto the slab of meat he took up, gradually draining out the blood until it dulled from the dark red to a paler, greyer colour, yet it had been morbidly fascinating.

The sound of Larch's strained voice made him start.

"You're up," he noted, twisting in his chair to observe the man. He looked haggard and tired, but he walked with a steady step. Harry was sure that there had been more than the Blood Boiling Curse on him, but he hadn't asked. As his host sat down, Harry noted with uneasiness that the runes were once more invisible.

"Yes," Larch agreed, voice soft, not even approaching his normally captivating tones. He seemed washed out.

"Why am I learning to duel now?" Harry asked suspiciously. "I thought you were only going to start teaching me when I'd finished on the seventh year subjects."

Larch grimaced. "I've been…rather deluded. There is not the time I thought there was. You need to learn how to protect yourself in a dangerous situation."

Harry nodded, still frowning but silently pleased. He was going to finally start learning what he'd wanted to know in the first place. Revenge was closer than it had ever been. There was only one more thing that rested on his mind. "What about Occlumency?" Harry asked, bringing up the subject again. If Voldemort had checked in on him in the past few months, he hadn't noticed. In fact, there had been barely a shiver through their connection. However it hadn't put his fears at ease so much as made him even more suspicious.

Larch looked at him for a long time, pale eyes distant. Harry tried to read something in his expression, but there were no signs, no hints at all. "I will find you a tutor," he said finally. Harry frowned. Why wasn't he teaching him himself? He obviously knew the art…or did he? Surely he did. The man had the same sense of closed off emotions as Snape did. His expression was even as unreadable as Dumbledore's times.

"All right," Harry agreed. He wasn't going to complain, as long as the tutor's first name wasn't 'Severus' and they didn't have a longstanding vendetta against him and his family.

Larch's pensiveness seemed to fall from him and he leant back into the chair with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. "The political climate at the moment is very unstable," he said, seeming to think that this would suffice as some kind of explanation. "We're at an impasse; the powers that be can fight against each other all they want, but until there's another breakthrough or clear cut win for one of the sides then we're going nowhere. Everyone's on the edge of their metaphorical seats waiting for this big 'breakthrough' that'll tip it in somebody's favour, and that means there's a lot of friction, especially within the different factions as people try to move up to the top of the ladder, as it were. It's practically all manoeuvring within political circles, and spies in the others ranks nowadays."

Harry processed this slowly, going over it in his mind. "That doesn't explain why you came back all bust up, or why you want to teach me to duel now. Unless…" he trailed off, considering Larch's expression and what he'd just said with a sudden clarity and understanding. "Unless you're trying to get me to tip this 'metaphorical balance'."

Larch smiled blandly and leaned forwards, resting his forearms on his knees. "Precisely. I've got a lot riding in this war, and I want to come out on top. I've told you already that I need your help to do it. I've got no inconsiderable amount of political sway, but if it comes out that you're the real deal, back from the dead and backing me, then…" he trailed off suggestively.

Harry felt his expression shutter up, face becoming defensively blank. _Too soon_, he thought desperately, _far too soon. I don't know if I'll be able to smile politely at New Ministry officials over dinner any better than I'll be able to out-duel them._

"I don't think you quite comprehend how the public view you," the dark-haired man assessed. "When you left, you were a celebrity, downtrodden but respected none the less. Since your disappearance, you've reached almost mythical status. People don't quite swear by you yet, but nevertheless, if it's proven that you're back, alive and well, then you'll be hailed a saviour. They'd believe you could walk on water, if you catch my drift. If you called out for help, you'd have your own personal army of supporters flocking to you from every side."

Harry regarded him as impassively as he could. This wasn't what he wanted…it was far too much. He'd thought 'celebrity status' had been bad before, but if he was really going to be treated like Larch said… "Give me one reason why I should support you," he replied warily. _I have a choice_, Harry thought, _and no matter what verbal deal we made I can always back out. I don't want to just hand him a merry band of soldiers._

"Stubborn," Larch murmured.

"Practical," Harry retorted. The older man laughed, some of his usual presence regained.

"Very well Harry," he began. "I'm asking you to understand that you're an important person in these conflicts. In one way or another, you will end them. In the end you are really faced with two choices about how you go about that. You can either ally yourself with one of the factions and let them train you to the best of their ability to face down Voldemort, or you can begin your own fight."

"_Your_ fight, you mean," Harry noted shrewdly.

Larch drummed his fingers along the armrest of his chair. "You misunderstand my intentions. I have invested in this spat over the years, undoubtedly, but I don't want to form a permanent power structure at its resolution with myself at its head. I want to effect changes. Even you can admit that the treatment of magical creatures in this country begs a change, does it not?"

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Yes, but-"

"And that the laissez-faire attitude towards introducing Muggleborns into the wizarding world could bear some alteration? Or even the power that the press has over the general public?"

"A lot needs to change," Harry agreed grudgingly. "But this is still basically about you establishing an organisation and playing out a bunch of political moves with my backing."

Larch shrugged eloquently. "It's necessary if you are to take down Voldemort, and as he stands he still poses the greatest threat to the wizarding world as we understand it."

"Wait, wait, wait," Harry pressed, holding up a hand to stop him from continuing. "Why do you think I'm the one to defeat Voldemort?"

Larch's expression darkened, and Harry would have had to be blind to miss the whirlwind of emotions behind his eyes before they became shuttered again. "You are connected by more than you know. He is your alpha and omega, and you his. In the end, it will always come back to the pair of you, but you don't need to stand against him alone."

Harry didn't like the sound of that. Not for the first time, he thought back to the prophecy that had both of their names on it, the contents of which were still spelled to his molar. Adding Larch's statement to what he'd already heard, he wasn't all too keen on finding out just what lay in store for him.

"Right," he said stiffly. "And that didn't sound ominous at all." Larch chuckled.

"Your future _is_ ominous, as is mine. Voldemort is obsessed with you, and he will stop at nothing to destroy you, even now. With his return, he had already had thirteen years to think of revenge, and now he has had another fourteen."

"Why?" asked Harry quietly. "Why would he even bother with me anymore if I've been gone so long? Why not just forget I even existed?"

His host smiled humourlessly. "Because something about you threatens him, and every time you have faced him you have defeated him or escaped. No one else can claim that."

"Right," Harry repeated, more for something to break the impending silence than anything else. "So I've got a madman out for my blood. Glad you reminded me."

Larch let out a bark of laughter. "You needn't thank me," he shot back. "But we have gone off topic."

Harry stared pensively into the empty grate, thoughts a puddle in the bottom of his brain. Larch's mysterious tattoos, his journey to the future, the New Ministry, the war…it all mixed together into an acidic ooze that ate away at his confidence. He'd been so sure he could leave it all behind, do the things he wanted to do and not worry about the rest of the world for once in his life. He refused to be made guilty about the state of wizarding Britain all over again, when he'd already given that up. Of course, he wouldn't have much of a life anyway if he didn't kill the bastard. If what Larch said was true, of course.

"So basically you're saying I should throw my lot in behind you and do whatever you say because you can help me defeat Voldemort, who still wants my blood even after all this time," Harry deduced. Larch winced.

"Bluntly put, yes, if you choose to look at it simplistically," he replied. "Try and view it a little more practically. You're a sixteen year old boy who had little to no knowledge of the Wizarding world and its customs fourteen years ago, let alone in its current state. As an 'impostor', everyone is interested in you, and the New Ministry are aware by now that you are quite certainly the boy who disappeared from the Department of Mysteries all those years ago." Harry mentally acknowledged the careful skirting around his most unpleasant stay there. "Everyone in power wants you because they want to know if you're really the Boy-Who-Lived, and once they find out that you are then they'll want you even more because they know how much more powerful they could become if you backed them. It's a four way struggle."

Harry wasn't amused. "So you're saying you're the lesser of two…well, five evils?" he asked dully. He missed the way his host's eyes narrowed.

"If you want to put it that way. At least I don't want to kill you, though I came close after you'd lost your wand." Harry winced unconsciously at the memory of his childish tantrum.

"Sorry," he muttered, "I overreacted a little."

"I know," the other man replied simply. "The point is that unlike your other choices, I offer my help and allow you to keep your own mind which, I grant you, none of your other options will."

Harry cast a glance at him. "The Order of the Phoenix-"

"Albus Dumbledore has a history of mental manipulation and Obliviation," Larch interrupted smoothly. "After one hundred and seventy years he's used to getting his own way."

Harry rested his head in his hands, feeling as if he were repeatedly slamming into a brick wall. "All right," he said finally, grudgingly, "I'm at your disposal, but I keep the option of refusing to endorse whatever schemes you're cooking up."

Larch smiled blandly. "I'd hoped you would say that. Tomorrow, you'll join me for my morning exercises. You can't duel for extended periods of time in the state you are now. You can barely jog to the top of the house and back without getting out of breath."

Harry nodded vaguely, wondering if he'd made the right decision. But then again, what other decision was there to make? Larch didn't need to have it pointed out that alone he would accomplish nothing, and although he was reasonably certain that he wouldn't be kicked out and left for the opposition to find, he could easily have locked him up or refused to teach him if Harry didn't agree. He didn't find himself terribly eager to test his host's apparent generosity.

* * *

The circular, darkened room held only candles. Bellatrix sighed against the silk pillows of the bed, stretching, thinking. Family fights were the best kind, she reflected, and little Nymphadora would prove the challenge she'd been itching for since the proper fights had finally died down. She'd met the girl more than once since she'd been locked away in Azkaban, faced her across the battlefield, as it were. When she'd worked for the blasted Order under Albus Dumbledore's hand, and when she'd joined Arnold Peasgood's campaign against the Dark. When she had the girl under her command, she'd have to ask her why she changed sides. Bellatrix wondered just what could have transformed the clumsy, _nice_ little girl into a furious, _dangerous_ woman. She knew that her father had died…or been killed? She couldn't remember. She would find out though. She would find out everything about her little Nymphadora, her promised plaything.

_To be a Metamorphmagus_, Bellatrix thought languidly. _There was so much that could be done._ Part of her worried that the girl might take her master's favour from her. She already knew that the youngest Black wouldn't stay out of his attentions for long. She only hoped that she could be included – at least that way she would be able to keep a hold of things. The thought of the disgusting, half-blood tart taking her place made her blood boil. _Well, _she thought_, if that happens then I'll be forced to dispatch of my dear niece and take the consequences…my lord will always favour me…must favour me after all I've done for him. Nymphadora would betray him in an instant if she could…_

She felt laughter bubble up in her chest at the idea of her niece begging her, tears down her cheeks, and repressed it enough that only a small giggle escaped. She was looking forwards to casting the curse, feeling it running through her blood, finding her magic, her family, tracking her down and…

Despite herself, she cackled, rolling onto her back and letting her fingers curl into the sheets. Laughter, rolling its way up her throat, bursting forth with such bliss…she could see the girl twisting in pain now, under her control…

"Something amusing you my dear wife?"

Bellatrix' giggles died down, and she flipped herself over again so that she could watch her husband approach. Azkaban had scarred him badly, and he was still far too thin, but there was a hunger that burned in his eyes and a leanness to his frame that left him looking eager, all but on the hunt, and when he was casting spells-

"Bellatrix," he murmured in his rasp of a voice. Too many Cruciatus curses. Bellatrix giggled again.

"Rodolphus darling, I'm having the most wonderful time," she crooned as he crossed the room to where she lay.

"Is that so?" He looked down at her, eyes trailing slowly over her. She smiled predatorily and moved a little so that her cleavage was more evidently emphasised.

"It is so," she replied playfully, vibrant eyes lightening at the images going through her mind. "My niece will be joining us soon for some fun."

"The Metamorphmagus," he acknowledged, moving to sit behind her and trail his hands down her shoulders until they rested in the small of her back. "And here I thought she was safe behind Ministry walls."

"No," she hissed possessively, "she's going to be mine."

She felt the brush of Rodolphus' unshaven chin on her cheek as he leaned forwards. "I hope our master gave you permission to let others have a go with her."

"Mmm," she hummed lewdly. "Just revenge for the little bitch."

"You're going to raise the blood curses aren't you, Bella?"

She twisted to face him, all pretence at banter gone, and pushed him roughly down against the bed. "Listening at doors again Rodolphus?" she snarled. Her rotten husband, eavesdropping, not worthy even to lick the Dark Lord's feet, not worthy to be in his sight when he was such a treacherous little rat-

Her husband laughed hoarsely. "I know you too well, my dear wife. You mutter in your sleep. You've been planning this for a long time."

Bellatrix expression morphed from anger to dark amusement, lips curving into the insane grin that had put such fear in her enemies over the years. "Crucio," she breathed, wand pressed to her husband's neck. He jerked in her hold, twisted as if she had a grip around his windpipe and was cutting off his air, but he didn't scream, not yet…still, she thought, there was time yet. She wouldn't blood cast the curse for another two hours at least. There was time enough.

* * *

Nymphadora was jerked rudely from her sleep sprawled across her desk by a persistent but rising pain that crawled across her skin, rippling and squirming, and then to her horror, burrowing into her flesh like a thousand tiny worms until she could feel them in her veins and capillaries, biting, stinging, _hurting_. Gasping, she pushed away from the desk and promptly wished she hadn't when she fell limply to the floor from the lack of support. Gods, Merlin, it was burning into her skin, burning so badly…with a groan she pushed herself onto her hands and knees, fighting it, forcing herself to crawl towards the door. She had to get help, she'd lived through worse, she had to get help…panting, she almost collapsed, forced herself to stay balanced, arms shaking with the struggle.

The pain flared, burrowing deeper into her, and she let out a cry and fell to the floor, one of her legs going into spasms, uncontrollable pain licking at her…

"Fuck!" she screamed, and clenched her teeth. Curse her for having her office silenced and warded. Curse her for thinking that she'd never need anyone's help. Curse her for thinking that she was infallible.

The pain struck in a crescendo, and this time she screamed in real agony, carrying on and on until she felt as if her throat was tearing up, her heart beating frantically against her chest as if trying to find a way out, hammering wildly, and Merlin she would do anything to stop the pain, anything, because it was piercing her heart and her brain and it hurt more than anything she'd ever felt.

It abated with an alarming suddenness, leaving her clutching at her chest, drawing ragged breaths into her still aching lungs. She wasn't foolish enough to think it gone, in fact, even as she returned to her own mind from the world of darkness she had previously inhabited she could feel it still clutching her skin, wriggling over the surface, _reminding_ her that she was trapped, she was owned.

"Bastards!" she shouted, lashing out with her hatred against the pain, knowing then exactly what was happening, knowing that her flesh and blood were trying to control her, to break her in, to bend her to their will. The curse fired back against her, the frisson of agony that had just left her beginning to make its inexorable way back under her skin, to her spine, her brain, her heart, her lungs, all the soft, vulnerable internal organs inside her, just waiting to be hurt again.

Nymphadora thrashed wildly, hair flashing through multiple colours, her body shifting as fast as she could make it, from form to form, rearranging her internal organs, turning herself practically inside out to avoid it, because she wouldn't break, she couldn't break, not after all this time, not after all this struggle and work to break free from everything that had held her back, and deep in the darkest pits of her mind something awoke and stirred, anger and hatred and years of bitterness pouring out of her because she…_couldn't_, simply _couldn't_ lose her control again, couldn't let others take it from her. Her own magic rose up at her call, raging against the foreign spell, forcing it to retreat, back and forth, back and forth, gradually falling back, failing, because it was in her blood, her very essence, something deeper and more primal even than her magic.

For as long as she could she fought against it, before accepting again, giving in because the pain was too great, and even for all her hatred she wasn't able to keep up and on, giving and giving and giving, changing so rapidly that she almost lost herself in the blur. She lay panting unevenly, willing herself not to rebel against it and at the same time hoping against hope that she could fool it, not give up her hope at all, to fight it, and eventually her fighting instincts won out and the squirming, worm-like sensations over her body woke again, burrowing towards her heart…

The cycle continued until Nymphadora was a sobbing wreck on the floor, tears and snot mixing with blood where she'd scrabbled at her skin with elongated nails.

"Bastards," she repeated, but this time it had lost all venom. This couldn't be happening to her again.

Choking on a sob, she hauled herself to her feet and over to her desk, finding her wand again. She'd give in to become free; she'd allow herself to be controlled until she could kill the bastards that did it to her. Conjuring a mirror, she began to heal the cuts on her face and straighten out her hair. The charm she'd learnt after her first boyfriend had broken up with her took away her reddened, tear stained eyes. Breathing deeply, she forced a composed expression onto her face and tried to think. Another tear rolled down her face and she wiped it furiously away. She'd survive. It was what she was good at.

The books on Floo systems lying long forgotten, she grabbed a sheet of parchment and a quill and began to write. There was no way she would be able to continue work like this. Her superiors needed to know…

Hiccuping, Nymphadora hesitated.

Her superiors…they were harsh people. Was a Metamorphmagus worth attempting to keep when there was the possibility of a compromised agent in the New Ministry? She wasn't sure that the answer would come out in her favour. Looking down at the note she had been writing, she slowly crumpled it into her hand. No, above all else she had to look out for herself. If she did manage to find a way to break from the curse, and a sharp stab of pain reminded her that she had to continue showing submissive thoughts to the magic, if she did break free, then she'd want her job back, her position of power…

Blood Curses, Family Curses. The fondest spells of the Black family. Anyone close enough by blood and magic could be reached, at a great risk. She needed to know who would cast it, who would do it to her, and then she'd send one right back at them. Biting her lip, she bore another wave of agony, and when she pulled herself back to her mirror charm she noticed she'd bitten through her lip. Blood was over everything.

"Oh bugger," she swore tearfully, reaching for her wand to heal herself again.

Composed as best she was able, she shifted into her most comfortable form and stepped out of her office. Her subordinates ignored her but for a few sideways glances, and she left the New Ministry building as swiftly as she could. As soon as she felt the security ring pass over her an owl immediately swooped down, landing on a nearby fence and imperiously holding out its leg. Fumblingly, she untied the letter, feeling the soft thrill of magic as her hands touched the parchment. They had her now. No backing out. No escape. Days of submission, subversion, until she could kill the caster. Trembling, she unfolded the parchment.

'_You will Apparate to Diagon Alley.'_

Nymphadora read those words with her heart constricting painfully. All this work, only to have it ruined at the wave of a hand. She should have expected this, anticipated it, should have _known_ and prevented it.

Merlin she'd been so foolish.

She took one shuddering step forwards and disappeared with a 'crack'.

* * *

**AN:** Sorry for the long wait people. Things are developing nicely now, and dear Nymphadora is in for a nasty time. Please review – they make this author happy, not to mention encourage me to write more ;) 


	9. The Soul Destroyer

**Chapter Nine: The Soul Destroyer**

Harry moved with as much grace as he could muster, swinging through the exercises smoothly, if not completely fluidly. For four days he'd woken early enough to join Larch in the garden and run through a set of simple move-sets one after another. They were designed to stretch his muscles, build his strength, and after so many repetitions within the hour that they did them, Harry felt he would be able to do them in his sleep. Since his host had returned to good health, his days had been taken up with duelling. They worked on it from breakfast until lunch, and in the afternoons went over theory and brief spell practice in the rest of his subjects.

The duelling he was being taught was nothing like he'd learnt in Defence Against the Dark Arts. In Hogwarts they'd covered how to defeat specific creatures and learnt the counter-curses and lightweight spells expected of them. _Stupefy, Reducto, Expelliarmus,_ ran through his head as he thought back to those lessons. Occasionally they would have a practice duel between two students, or a demonstration against them from the teacher. Nothing too big, nothing to scary, nothing too challenging.

The difference with Larch was one that Harry became aware of very quickly. He was trained to fight, and trained to win. He was used to going against opponents who would kill him with one curse, and everything about the lessons centred around how to avoid that curse, and get close enough to strike with your own. During Harry's first lesson, he spent his time dodging spells to the best of his ability without any form of shielding or retaliation; Larch had taken his wand from him in the beginning. As painful as it was being hit with stinging and petrifying hexes, Harry had learnt something valuable about saving energy by avoiding spells. The first thing Larch had done was get him to raise a shield and fired a barrage of spells at it in quick succession, until Harry could feel the shield crumbling under the onslaught. Then he'd made him dodge the same spells and compare how he felt.

Harry had taken the lesson to heart.

There were so many things, he realised, that hadn't been explained to them about duelling. There was how to fall, duck and weave effectively to avoid spells. There was awareness of your surroundings, and how a skilled duellist could back you into a corner in a few choice moves. There were the methods to judge the power of spells that you didn't know, and make your decisions based on what you saw in that split-second you had before the curse impacted. There were the methods to identifying which spells were aimed for you, and which ones were aimed for the ground beside you. There were the subtle cues from your opponent and how to tell apart a feinted move or a distraction from the actual thing.

Harry didn't learn all this at once, but he took to it like a fish to water. There was something about this way of fighting that appealed to his 'living in the moment' mentality in sticky situations. He tripped up and fell into Larch's traps more times than he could count, but he'd always been good at reading his enemy, gauging the threat and acting on what little information he had. It's what had kept him alive all these years.

One of the most interesting things he learnt was that traditional duellists spent hour upon hour going over commonly used spells and learning the wrist and wand movements associated with them. Almost all of the most successful combatants used silent spells, which Harry had been forced to learn at speed after Larch pointedly reminded him that shouting your spells didn't make them any more effective than whispering them, and he wasted valuable time telling his opponent exactly what he was about to cast. In fact, Harry realised, if you couldn't cast silent spells then your best bet _was_ whispering them.

For the past two days they'd been going over familiar spells again and again until Harry could see the wand motions for each in his minds eye without having to pause for thought. He understood at exactly what moment the spell would burst forth, rippling across the hall towards him, and exactly how long he had to act from when he identified the spell to when the wand motion was completed. Larch started him with the most basic spells, the same that he'd learnt in DADA, but once he could anticipate them they moved onto others. Before Harry fell asleep in the evenings in between the lessons, he went over each of the spells he'd learnt, imagining the motions and repeating them over and over until they were ingrained in his mind.

Along with the wand motions, Larch gave him lessons in spell 'shorthand'. Many of the wand motions could be cut down dramatically and still have the same effect, as could the incantations. Many of the heavier spells had long incantations that could be easily deflected, but by clipping off a little of the wand movements and shaving down the incantation, then the spell could be performed quicker than the enemy expected. Most of this Harry couldn't do yet, because it required an intense familiarity with the spell, and a whole load more concentration and will power than he could give during a full out duel. Silent spell casting was difficult enough, but the added effort of cutting down the parts of the spell that acted as 'crutches' to the wizard was usually beyond him. So far, all he'd been able to perform were 'Stupefy' and 'Expelliarmus'.

Despite this, for the first time since he'd arrived there, he felt truly interested in something. Not just the casual interest he had for Transfiguration or the other subjects, but something that could turn into a true passion. Fighting, dodging, throwing spells – it lit a fire in him that was even more than revenge. The first evening after they'd begun duelling, Harry thought about his friends. They'd been killed, yes, and it left a hole in his heart that refused to go away, yes, and he would do almost anything to avenge them, yes, but for the first time he looked at the issue with a little clarity. He remembered Larch telling him that their deaths were more than simple murders, a subject he still hadn't got around to broaching with him again. He wondered why his surviving friends hadn't already taken their revenge. He realised that however he looked at it, he had no right in feeling betrayed or vengeful, because he hadn't been there. They'd been killed while he was floating through time. He didn't even know the circumstances of their deaths.

A little of the bitterness died away that night, and along with it a little of the pain. He hadn't been there, but he'd do all he could to find out what had happened, and all he could to protect his living friends. That meant learning how to protect himself.

Harry had been rather shocked by Larch during their lessons. He'd had an inkling that the man could fight when he first met him; just judging him by his appearance he'd have said that he knew a few nasty curses and could hold his own if it came to it. Seeing his routine of morning exercises had wised him up to the idea that he did all he could to make sure he was in peak condition physically, and was more than capable of bringing him down with a few choice moves. From watching him duel, even though he was obviously toning down his skill to something more his level, Harry knew for certain that he was dangerous. A man you didn't fuck with. He'd known that already, to some extent. Larch was obviously someone used to being respected, and used his presence and character for all it was worth. Harry had seen others do that – Lucius, Snape, Dumbledore, and Voldemort.

In the few short lessons Harry had had a revelation that should have come to him a lot earlier. Janus Larch had and still did present him with exactly what he wanted to see; someone with strength, but enough of a calm and amicable surface for him to feel a little comfortable around, to trust. Harry had deluded himself. When he was skirting curses and ducking and weaving, it had hit him like a Bludger. He was tangling with even more of an unknown entity than he'd had time to consider. Larch wasn't always the polite face he showed him.

If his rather strained teaching methods were anything to go by, he wasn't used to instructing someone younger than him, or even interacting with them in such a way. He was a man who made dubious potions for anyone who asked, however lethal or morally revolting the brew. He was someone who was covered from head to toe in ritualistic runes and Dark magic. He involved himself in things that left him bleeding and dying and were very much not what the Wizarding public usually engaged in. In short, no matter what Harry had assumed before, he was someone who was very much tied up in the current feud occurring in the Wizarding World.

For some reason, that revelation put him more at rest. It didn't sate his curiosity, nor did it make him more comfortable about the man, but it laid rest his vague suspicions. He had a hold on something now, he just needed to find out what.

_The next time he leaves to deliver a potion,_ Harry thought to himself as he dodged a hex, _I'm breaking into his rooms._

"Your Occlumency tutor will arrive tomorrow afternoon for your first lesson," Larch told him impassively, shooting another curse at him. _Bone Breaker_, Harry thought as the dark haired man began the wand movements for the next - careful, controlled and precise. Larch cast with the minimum movement possible, the signs carefully hidden. _One of the hardest things_, he thought, _is concentrating on his wand hand when you're already practically dancing to avoid spells._

"Really?" Harry huffed. He felt like the characters he'd seen in Dudley's movies, with a cartoon villain firing a gun at his feet. "Who is it?"

"Not someone you'd know," Larch replied vaguely, moving languidly around the room, keeping him on his toes. Harry rolled to the side and called up a low-level shield to block the bright blue hex whirring towards him. It dissipated, but to his dismay a purple hex followed after it, knocking him flat on his back as if all the air had been kicked out of his lungs. "I could see what shield you were going to cast and anticipated it. Vary them, don't use the same over and over."

"Okay," Harry wheezed, pulling himself to his feet. "Give me a second."

Larch raised an amused brow. "Perhaps if you ask them nicely, Death Eaters and Vindicators will give you 'a second' too?"

Harry scowled and shot a low-level stunner towards him, more as a distraction than anything else. It was more effective than the one he'd learnt in school, pre-war Auror grade material, but not at such high levels to knock, say, a half-giant out. It was a good compromise.

"I don't know about Vindicators," he replied, ducking and repelling a spell with a flick of his wand, "but Death Eaters always want to gloat and savour their victory."

Larch laughed derisively. "You're thinking fourteen years in the past. Voldemort had just risen, and they'd grown fat in their manor homes. No one was prepared to-" he paused, effortlessly avoiding Harry's trio of spells, "-to give them a real fight. Times have changed," he said with finality, batting away the last spell aimed at him. The art of parrying. Harry still hadn't got it down properly, because it relied on silent casting too much, and he wasn't very good at that yet. It required a certain type of concentration that he hadn't quite fallen into, but which Larch assured him he would crack soon enough.

"Yeah, all right," Harry muttered under his breath, staggering backwards as another set of spells flew towards him. He evaded the first three, but he was caught in the wash of the fourth, a dark green spell. "Fuck," he hissed through his teeth. It felt as if his skin had been set on fire, only for a moment, but long enough that he barely avoided the following curse, and was clipped by the last. He fell rigidly to the floor and winced mentally. Larch had jinxed the bruise salve so that he couldn't use it, and he had to live with each one of his failures imprinted into his skin in big purple blotches. As much as people claimed differently, being petrified and falling flat onto the floor _hurt_. As he was released from the petrification jinx, he realised he'd walked right into that trap.

_Keep moving,_ he told himself, even though whenever a spell hit his natural instinct was to freeze up. It was an instinctive reaction that was incredibly difficult to overcome.

"Once you've finally managed to get a handle on the basics of duelling, we'll begin working on your spell variety," Larch told him, lazily flicking his wand and sending another stream of spells towards him.

"What's wrong with them now?" Harry asked with a frown. The Death Eaters he'd seen hadn't used curses on a much wider spectrum than he had. _But Harry, they were playing with you_, he reminded himself viciously.

"Have you ever seen a real duel between masters?" the dark haired man asked him.

"I haven't," Harry admitted.

Larch sighed and erected a flawless shield, reflecting Harry's own spells in an arc back at him, which he fumbled to dodge in time. "If you'd ever seen Voldemort duel, or Dumbledore, or even Flitwick, then you'd understand what I'm talking about. All are very skilled with their chosen subject, and although Voldemort always favoured the Dark Arts and Charms a bit more, he was never averse to using Transfiguration to manipulate his surroundings. Watching Dumbledore fight on the other hand, is like watching poetry in motion. He's creative in ways that the Dark Lord will never be. Or take Flitwick; small, agile, quick with a wand and truly gifted with spell shorthand, and not only that but very well-versed in Charms, one of the broadest subjects."

"You've studied duellists then," Harry noted as he dodged a lurid pink spell that exploded against the shields around them.

"One must have, but that is hardly obscure knowledge," Larch scoffed. "I merely chose prominent figures who you would recognise and know well enough to see some of the things I'm naming. Albus Dumbledore is hardly a duellist by profession, but you must have seen enough of his spellwork to see the ease with which he can manipulate his surroundings, hmm?" Harry nodded. "Flitwick and Voldemort are superior duellists in technique, and the Dark Lord in particular because his position demands it from him."

"Then if he's the better dueller why does he fear Dumbledore so much?" Harry asked, the last coming as a grunt as a he took a hex to the leg.

"Because they balance out rather too evenly for the Dark Lord to be sure that he will win."

"I thought only Death Eaters called Voldemort the 'Dark Lord'," Harry replied in an attempt to move the subject on. He wasn't feeling particularly fond of the headmaster this past year and didn't particularly want to talk about him much longer, only…for Dumbledore it had been fourteen years. _Damn,_ he thought as he reminded himself yet again of the time lapse. It was simultaneously hard to ignore and easy to forget.

Larch shrugged. "It's a gesture of respect."

Harry paused in surprise, and consequently took another Stinging Hex to the arm. "Why do you respect him?" he asked with a frown, rubbing the sore spot on his skin.

"Do you not think he's worthy of respect?" Larch asked, allowing him his moment of respite. "Is he not a worthy adversary?"

"Yeah," Harry conceded, "but that doesn't mean he deserves it."

Larch chuckled eerily. "Perhaps if I clarify; I respect him for his formidable skill, intelligence, and ambition. Despite his aims and what you might think, Voldemort has many admirable qualities. One of them," he directed a pointed look at Harry, "is his skill in duelling."

Sighing, Harry took the hint and batted away his next spell. "So what's Dumbledore got that Voldemort hasn't?" he asked, playing the game.

"Many things," Larch said with a faint quirk of his lips. "First of all, he's had nearly seventy years more experience than him. Near double the time Voldemort's been alive, and he's still going strong. The man has an outstanding mind, and a wealth of information he has collected during his life readily at his disposal. He was a brilliant student, similar to Tom Riddle in that respect, and Transfiguration is his strongest skill, meaning that he can use it effortlessly in battle. Understand Harry, that a truly skilled duellist is not first and foremost a duellist."

Harry looked at him in some confusion. "You're saying that to be really good at fighting you have to incorporate other things," he ghosted.

"Yes and no," his host hummed, darting forwards in a feint as they began to duel once more. "You can't make a Master out of duelling alone. Take Filius Flitwick as an example once more; he was a champion duellist. His passion and interest lies in Charms, and he is a brilliant duellist because of this passion. It allows him a chance to put his skill to work in ways that others couldn't comprehend, and his flawless understanding of the subject gives him an advantage over his opponents because he knows exactly how to manipulate what he's using."

Harry nodded in understanding. It made a lot of sense to him. Duelling couldn't be taught as a subject because it was comprised of so many different elements of magic; that was precisely the reason that Defence Against The Dark Arts was just that, rather than a class concentrated on combat between two opponents. "You're bringing this back to Transfiguration again," he noted shrewdly.

Larch nodded, agreeing. "From what I've seen, it's quite within your grasp to become as skilled as Albus was at your age. You have a natural aptitude for it, even if you don't back it up with the work or particular interest."

"Hey!" Harry protested as another spell lanced towards him. "I practised damn hard recently."

"Precisely," Larch said with a satisfied look. "_Recently_. You missed so much of the groundwork through laziness that you've spent most of your time here so far catching up on what you should already be able to do."

Harry had to concede that point. He hadn't exactly done his best over the past five years. "So," he began, "Transfiguration in duels?"

Larch laughed. "There are lots of things I could do," he said, making several swift, complicated gestures. The floor below him swirled and writhed, wooden coils emerging to snare his ankles. Azure blue butterflies dived around his head in a swarm from thin air. A wall behind him appeared where there hadn't been one before as he stumbled away, blocking his escape. "As you can see, there is a lot of simple wandwork you can do to unsettle your opponent, and Transfiguration is most useful for that. I could have killed in the seconds that it took for you to get over your surprise."

"I get the idea!" Harry called from behind the swarm of butterflies, ankles now firmly sunk into the floorboards.

"Are you sure?" a taunting voice called back. "You look like you might need a little more convincing."

"I'm quite sure!" Harry shouted through the flutters of blue wings, yanking one of his feet free of the floor.

"Very well," he heard his mentor murmur, and the transfigurations settled back into their original forms, butterflies crackling with smoke from their delicate wings before they faded into nothing.

"So Transfiguration's pretty useful," Harry conceded with a slight smile, feeling a little foolish.

Larch returned it faintly. "It's an art. A true master of Transfiguration has an eye for the artistic merit in what he creates as he casts the spell. Duelling is similar – a truly skilled duellist is constantly creative."

Harry nodded vaguely, lowering his wand. "The enemy is put on their guard," he finished.

"Precisely," Larch agreed. He holstered his wand with a flick of his wrist and withdrew a book from one of the pockets of his robes. Walking towards Harry, he placed the slim black leather-bound volume in his hands.

Harry frowned, flipping it open and reading the words 'A Duellist's Manual' on the first page in plain printed letters. He looked up at Larch questioningly, and the older man smiled with a hint of smugness.

"Consider it the first book towards your own collection," he said by way of explanation. "It's got some of the best tactical duelling advice in the field, and that's saying something."

"Thanks," Harry replied, quite honestly surprised. He didn't know what to think of the impromptu gift. Instead he snapped it shut with a nod to Larch as the session ended.

---

"Back again Ancel?" Carrow shivered at the hiss of a voice emerging from his master's lips. He didn't dare look up, he only hoped he'd succeeded well enough to please him, well enough to stay out of the hands of that evil bitch who was his left hand. "Let us hope that you have done better than last time…"

Ancel bowed his head in deference, and then a stronger force was pulling it up, as strongly as if hands had gripped his hair, yanking his skull to face the ceiling, eyes towards his master's, and for one panicked moment he tried to avoid them, tried to avoid the inevitable, and then he was sinking, sinking, sinking into crimson, the colour of drying blood, darker…he felt memories tugged to the surface and just as swiftly discarded, his best and worst moments flying forwards…

_He was ten again, kicking another boy in the ribs, Merlin how he hated him…he was looking up at his uncle's face in fear, seeing the muddy brown hair and eyes, leering, looking at him in a way he didn't like at all…he was standing over the man's grave, laughing hysterically, feeling free and powerful for the first time in his life…he was looking into Bellatrix's insane violet eyes, narrowed in hatred and something more, fearing for his life…_

He couldn't tell how long it had gone on for, but all he knew was that there was a brief pause, the images barely starting to fade, before an entire memory was thrust into the forefront of his mind, and he watched himself, walking down a cobbled street…

_Alchemic Alley, he thought, glancing at the lower level shops with a sneer. The only quality stores in his mind were those higher up, those that had earned their place in the world – not this gypsy filth that was practically a flea market, always shifting premises, trading dubious items and flimsy trinkets. Why his Lord would want something from one of these stores he'd never know, but what he did know was that he didn't want to return with another failure on his back, so when he saw the Li family shop he tried to concentrate on his surroundings like his Lord had told him to._

_The front of the shop looked exactly as it had the last time he'd seen it, filled with things hanging from the ceiling, baskets of little wooden and metal trinkets scattered here and there, a giant carved sculpture of a cat sitting in one corner, paw raised. It unnerved him. He didn't like the place. There was something about it that unsettled his senses in a way different to being around his master, something imperceptible at an almost primal level, something that he didn't notice consciously even the second time round, apart from a general aura of oddity._

_This time the woman wasn't behind the high counter on her stool, smoking her pipe and watching him with that insolent little smile, no, this time the counter was abandoned and voices floated through from the back corridor. Edging forwards, Ancel Carrow concentrated as hard as he could, trying to commit the shouted argument to memory – and he was close enough to the half open door to hear that it was indeed an argument._

"_-in the next month! And if you're not careful, little bitch, then you'll be out of house and home!"_

"_Nothing-" the other voice began, but Ancel couldn't make out what she said, because she stopped, then dropped her voice, but he heard the last words spat out like a curse, "-western fools!"_

_There was a pause and then a crack, and Ancel assumed that the woman had been hit. He hoped so; she certainly deserved to be for her insolence._

"_Think carefully about your future little sister," a male voice said calmly. "Without money or family, no one is going to take you in. Father has turned into a doddering fool in his old age, but I will not let the family sit by and rot because of it. You've been here long enough, and there's no reason to pretend any longer. Drop the act Su, and accept that you're a dying breed in this place. Our family has evolved, and what I've learnt here is superior in every way to what Mother taught us! Our parents were raised with it, of course they wouldn't accept Western magic, but you've been through Hogwarts. You should know better."_

"_You're a fool. An arrogant fool," came the narrow reply, and silence reigned again._

"_Very well," he said finally, and Ancel had to strain to catch the words, "you've made your bed and you'll sleep in it."_

_Carrow had enough sense to step back and wait at that counter with what he hoped was a bored expression as a young man strode through the doorway. He cast no more than a cursory glance over him as he passed, but called back over his shoulder,_

"_There's a customer; don't keep him waiting."_

_Ancel deigned to give the young man a nod, who returned his own imperious one. He approved. At least one of their family had the sense to take charge. A few moments later the woman emerged again, one cheek slightly red and a furious look on her face that was smoothly masked as she caught sight of him._

"_So Carrow has returned," she called out tauntingly, hopping up onto her stool and resting her forearms on the counter. Ancel couldn't help but wonder how such a slight little creature had the gall to try and jeer at him. He could probably crush one of those slender wrists with his hands. "Did your master like the ruined Chartuli?" she asked with a curl of her lips._

_It took a moment for Ancel to figure out just how she knew about that. "You ruined them on purpose, and now you will show some respect!" Ancel spat at her. She didn't rise to him._

"_To the man who manages to botch the simplest of jobs?" she sneered. Ancel fumed silently, wishing his Lord had sent him to kill the little hedge-witch instead._

"_I am returning to place another order," he ground out finally._

_She raised her brows, mocking. "Really? That _is_ surprising. I'd be flattered if I didn't know that it was because of your stupidity in this matter. Who's paying for this?"_

"_Arrogant little whore, I'll make you pay for this, I'll make you burn," he burst out finally, unable to retain his anger anymore, and knowing just as he was sure she did that he would be the one to fund the venture. It felt good to insult her, put her in her place like the worthless filth she was. She was just another fool peddling junk._

"_Ignorant cur," she hissed back at him, eyes betraying something almost like amusement. He wondered briefly whether he'd get the chance to torture her when this was all over. He'd begin with her eyes, those provocative eyes…_

_Their stares met, and Ancel fantasised about just how he'd continue to beat her down before he came back to his senses. He had a mission._

"_The same order, for two days time," he returned finally, the only thing forcing him to back down was the thought of what would happen if he returned without anything to report, again. Anything but that._

"_Fine," she said shortly._

"_Was that your brother?" he said after a long pause, trying to think of what his master would want to know, and attempting to soothe himself with the memory of the crack of sound as the man had hit her, just as he wanted to now._

"_No brother of mine," she replied, fumbling in one of her cotton trouser pockets and withdrawing that long pipe again, looking like it was carved out of bone, symbols burnt into it but he couldn't see what…no matter. He discarded it without second thought. It wasn't important._

"_So…did your parents settled here?" he asked in what he hoped was a commanding voice. He wished, not for the first time, that he had the same voice as Lucius did, the one that made you do things for him even while you hated his filthy aristocratic guts. The man would bleed blue if you cut him._

"_Why are you still here?" the girl asked him bluntly, and Carrow bristled again._

"_When did the shop start up?" he asked more forcefully._

_She blew a ring of smoke into his face, and he impatiently swatted it away. "So you're told to find out more about me," she replied, looking calmer than she had any right to. "What did your master tell you to ask?"_

_Ancel realised with a sudden clarity that he usually only experienced after liberal doses of the Cruciatus Curse that this girl had somehow wrestled control of the conversation from him before he even woke up this morning. It was unnerving, like everything in this witch-house._

"_When did your family come over?" he asked again, a little desperately. She gave him a languid smirk._

"_There's a chain of hierarchy, right?" she drawled. "So I guess you're nearer the bottom." Carrow bristled at this insult to his status and opened his mouth to deny it- "And he uses pain as a punishment when you fail."_

_Ancel realised that he wasn't going to get anywhere like this. In a brief flash of Slytherin understanding, he nodded. She smiled, looking satisfied._

"_I'm really not interested in giving you answers to your question," she said finally, taking a long drag on the pipe. It belched out blue smoke from the bowl._

"_You'll tell me girl-"_

"_Or what?" she pressed him, soft gaze hardening suddenly. "You can't damage me because you won't dare to risk it and you'd be more fool if you did, filthy dog."_

_Ancel placed to palms down on the counter and leaned threateningly forwards. "There's always the Imperius curse. There's always your family," he murmured._

_A flash of worry went through her eyes, so quickly he thought it might not be there at all. "Then why would I tell you anything about them?" she asked him blandly._

_Ancel smiled, knowing he had something here, feeling it on a basic level. "Oh, the Dark Lord will find out about them, whether you tell me or not."_

_She snorted, all traces of fear now gone from her expression. "You know how much danger you put yourself in by saying that? Vindicators round every corner and you don't bother to stay quiet?"_

"_There's no reason to be quiet!" he declared. Foolishly, in retrospect. "I'm not ashamed of who I serve, and they wouldn't believe a little pauper hedge-witch like you over a man of their own country."_

"_I thought the dogs could sink no lower, but you've shown me new pits of ignorance," she declared carelessly. "Get out of my shop."_

_Ancel had stepped forwards again…to do what?…but the memory was fading under his hands…_and soon he found himself panting for breath on his hands and knees, gritty stone floor under his palms.

"You disappoint me Ancel," said the cold voice from above. He winced fearfully. The little bitch had been right after all, and now he'd suffer for being so dim, even though he didn't see how that could have gone better.

"I'm sorry master," he replied, a hint of desperation and pleading in his voice.

"I am not pleased with your repeated failures," his lord continued, and Ancel didn't dare look up and see those cold, unforgiving eyes staring back down at him in disgust. "However…" he paused and Ancel's breath hitched a little at the promise that there might be relief, "you exposed a side of the girl's character that would not have otherwise been seen, even if it was unintentional."

"Thank you master," he rushed out, "I-"

"I did not say I am pleased with your work," he reminded him, and there was a hint of a smile in his voice as he continued, "as she said, you have uncovered new levels of stupidity." Ancel felt like he might die of fear and anticipation for the pain he knew would come. "You will return only to receive the order, as this simple task is obviously all you are capable of undertaking. If you damage them once again I shall be forced to take more drastic measures. Perhaps a shift to joining the Dementor guard?"

"No!" he yelped out, before realising his mistake.

"'No'?" the Dark Lord repeated, his voice becoming dangerous. "You are incapable of collecting the Chartuli?"

"No master!" Ancel grovelled, a lurch in his stomach making him feel nauseous. "I can get the order."

"Then do so."

"Yes master, of course master," he gushed with another little bow of his head, and he realised he must sound like that spluttering fool Wormtail just now. He was intensely glad that there was no one else around to see it, although being alone in a room with the most powerful Dark Lord in history wasn't exactly comforting either.

"Ancel, since this seems to be all you're able to understand," he murmured, and his head snapped up almost of its own volition, "_Crucio_."

If he hadn't been writhing in agony, he would have heard the loving caress of that word as it was spoken, and the slight, almost imperceptible smile on his master's face as he watched him convulse. Poetry.

Voldemort smiled. He had yet another little diversion to entertain him in the girl. The work had been good, and it would pay to have someone with that skill working for him.

---

Nymphadora stood brokenly in the ruins of Diagon Alley, wand out, turning this way and that. After the Battle of Diagon Alley, it had been completely abandoned. With the wards decimated, the shops destroyed and danger at every corner, there had been little reason for it to be renovated and returned to the bright place it had once been. She could still remember standing there after the battle, just like she was now, looking over the destruction with horror, charred skeletons of the shops and houses smoking in the gentle morning light. It had seemed horrific, perverse, with the sun shining lightly down as if there weren't people mangled and dying at every corner. The wounded and the dead were the worst thing, but returning there now sent shivers down her spine as she remembered. It had changed very little over the years: the broken buildings had weathered and worn, the remains picked by scavengers for anything of worth, and the corpses the New Ministry had been unable to clear in the resulting fallout had turned to bone. This was what remained of the hub of the Wizarding World that had stood for millennia or more. It was a ghost town.

In the darkness her wandlight threw strange shadows on her surroundings, pulling into relief the tumbled beams and stone of the buildings. It put her at a distinct disadvantage. There were so many places to hide, to run to, and she wouldn't be able to spot her captors before they attacked. She shifted nervously through forms, hair changing colour at a wild rate. She could still feel the prickle of pain across her skin, winding down her arms and legs, across her chest and face. It would get stronger as the caster approached, but she hoped, she prayed that she would be able to get in one crippling shot before she was forced to submit. Anything would be better than slavery at the hands of a Death Eater.

_Or Dumbledore,_ she added silently.

The Blood Curse, this variety, was particular. She knew it so well. The caster sacrificed their control to another for control of one of their immediate family. It was a price that no one in their right mind would willingly pay, especially since if held for longer than a month it would start crumbling the caster's sanity, but it narrowed her choices down to two people. Either it was Andromeda, her own mother, or it was Bellatrix, her estranged aunt. Narcissa was too cold, too self-possessed to consider handing her free will away, and the rest of them were blissfully dead.

_Besides, she's already sacrificed herself to that blonde bastard_, Nymphadora thought snidely, swinging her wand round to light the remains of what had once been Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Nothing, she noted, ears prickling and elongating in search of any hint of sound, any scratch that would tell her someone was approaching.

_There!_ Whipping round, Nymphadora thrust her wand forwards. "Avada Kedavra," she murmured, a bright green flash of light exploding against a tumbledown wall and illuminating the cobbled street for an instant. She was sure she'd seen movement, sure that there had been _someone_…

"Beautiful," said a voice to her left, and Nymphadora promptly narrowed down her captor to one.

"Bellatrix," she hissed between her teeth as the woman stepped out of the shadows. The Blood Curse grew stronger, burning against her like thousands of tiny worms squirming under her skin. She winced and stabbed her wand forwards again, using all the hatred she could feel as fuel – "Avada Kedavra," she whispered again, keeping it quiet, not shouting it, not letting her aunt know what she was casting, though she had no doubt she would guess.

The Death Eater side-stepped the curse with a delighted laugh. "Now, now Nymphadora, that wasn't very nice was it? Cursing your own auntie like that."

"Bitch." Nymphadora let loose a brilliant purple curse, and fired an electric one in close succession. She waited a moment, reading the signs in the other woman's body language, waiting for her to dodge to the side, into her range of fire where the Killing Curse would consume her in a single green burst of light, but…she didn't. She dodged the first but didn't move for the second, letting it impact her with a shriek, and for a moment she was highlighted against the ruins in a crackle of electric blue sparks playing over her skin, and then it faded just as quickly, leaving blue streaks across her vision as she squinted to see.

Nymphadora's skin was burning, four times as badly, four curses against her captor, and she gritted her teeth for one final try, crunching out the Killing Curse one last time – "Avada Kedavra!" she shouted, desperation in her voice now. Bellatrix easily dodged the poorly thrown spell and walked confidently towards her niece, now on her knees in the middle of the road, gasping for breath. She couldn't bear it, this pain, this pain even worse than before, on par with the Cruciatus, excruciating, rising in intensity until all she wanted to do was die, hoping that at any moment she would breathe her last breath, that she would collapse into blissful unconsciousness.

"My dear little niece," someone crooned, and the curse began to recede. Nymphadora found herself lying on her back, cool, rough shapes of the cobble stones pressing into her spine, the stars little pinpricks of light above, and a dark figure looming over her. She moaned, aching, feeling as if something had burrowed into her very being leaving gaping wounds in its wake. She couldn't go on like this. She wanted to die…

"Not until my master has had his fill of you," Bellatrix cackled. "He has such plans for you Nymphadora, you're going to help him come into full power…"

Had she said that out loud? She groaned, trying to pull herself back together, trying to force herself to fight, to rage against the injustice of this happening again, that someone else was mad enough to do this…Merlin she hated them all, a dark liquid ooze of hatred that had festered for years in the back of her mind, the bottom of her soul. When she got free (and the pain began again as she thought it), when she got free she'd murder them in cold blood, destroy them, use the Black madness for something constructive for once.

After she'd finished shaking she tried to reach for her wand, but it was nimbly plucked out of her fingers, and her aunt twirled it above her head, watching her in amusement. The little globe of light from the still active _lumos_ spell went round and round as it was twirled, highlighting the contours of Bellatrix' face in flashes of shadow and white skin, glistening against her eyeballs, and Nymphadora watched in growing horror as the reality of her situation sunk in. She was at the tender mercies of her most dangerous relative. Hopes of her escape shrunk from her mind even as she screamed to herself that there was still a chance, still a way, she would find a way out!

"Little niece, wandering all alone in the dark of Diagon Alley…you're lucky I found you when I did," the woman murmured, switching both wands to one hand, pointing them directly at Nymphadora's face. In a gross parody of concern she crouched beside her, petted her hair, cruel lips curved up into a smile. "We're going to have a lot of fun, you and I. You'll never be free again."

A vice-like hand curled round her wrist, dragging her bodily up off the ground. Nymphadora went completely limp, flopping to one side. Perhaps if the woman thought she was unconscious, dead…but her eyes were still open. If only she could kill her she'd be able to escape. Mutating her teeth and hands, she jerked forwards, slashing out at the Death Eater, jaws gnashing, closing mere inches away from her neck. Bellatrix danced away again, but Nymphadora felt her elongated nails connect with her skin, and there was blood on her hands now. Pressing her advantage she moved forwards one more time, only this time the other woman didn't move away but stayed standing where she was, still smiling.

"Stop."

Nymphadora carried on, but the moment she did so wrenching pain, beyond imaginable, lanced down her limbs and she collapsed in a heap on the floor again, unable to move.

"Pretty little thing," her aunt cooed. "Shouldn't have done that."

She was dimly aware that Bellatrix was peering absently at her forearm, which was bleeding profusely. With a glance at Nymphadora she saw that she was conscious again and leaned down beside her, examining one of her hands, still clawed, holding up the limp appendage and then, to Nymphadora's revulsion, swiping out a rough pink tongue to lap up the blood that ran down her nails. She opened her mouth to insult her, or pull away, or do _something_, because she couldn't sit there like this, when a blow landed on her jaw out of no where, a fist appearing from the shadowed blackness without warning.

"Get up!" Bellatrix stood back, and wracking pain overtook her again, fading only as she staggered to her feet. "You're _mine_."

The older woman moved forwards, slowly, considering, pacing around her as if she were examining a prize dog, and then moving in behind her where Nymphadora stood shaking, wrapping slender but strong arm around her, pressing her mouth against her neck in an open mouthed kiss, both of their wands jabbing directly into her throat.

"Pretty little thing," she mumbled against her neck, and Nymphadora couldn't repress a shiver of disgust as she did it. "Apparate."

---

Su was in the workroom again. Carrow's screw-up with the last set of Chartuli had earned her another generous fee, but it meant that she had to do them all again. So soon after the last batch, it left her feeling peculiarly drained as she dragged the feelings out of herself, reaching into the darkest recesses of her mind for the material. After finishing the last of the streamers and hanging them up to dry once more, she occupied herself with a wooden necklace and ruminated on the latest meeting with the idiotic man.

If the Dark Lord had ordered the Chartuli through Carrow, then he must know a good deal more about real magic than these fools she saw in the streets. She could respect that. The batch she had just finished would create a powerful and incrementally increasing effect. His followers would experience a wash of everything put into the scrolls when they entered his lair. She liked to think of the Dark Lord like a tiger, finding some cavernous cave to hide away in and operate from, and she could imagine his followers scuttling in like ants and rodents, some crushed under his paws, others fleeing back out again, but all of them inexorably drawn to return. She didn't like him. She didn't like _any_ of them - but she could respect him.

The little wooden necklace was comprised of carved beads and three little pendants hanging from it. With the tip of a brush, she stained the light wood in vibrant colours, using the delicate task to take her mind away from everything. Within the month her brother would be given the position as Head of the Li Family. The ultimate victory for a spoiled brat. She knew, in her heart, that he felt some sort of kinship to her, and all he had for her were empty threats, but they troubled her nonetheless. She couldn't help thinking that she had become tangled in something she could barely see. She kept thinking of Papa's words to her about marriage…they wouldn't leave her mind.

Shaking her head, frustrated, she hung the necklace up to dry. She was bored, and when she was bored she would play games.

_Let us see,_ she thought, _how knowledgeable this tiger is._

---

Hermione frowned over her spell manuscripts, puzzling the equations out. She'd been sitting for some time, trying to understand just how she was meant to even begin such a project. The spell Albus had asked her to create was one of the most…horrifying prospects she knew. There was no passion in her to create something that could only be used for bad, but as she always did, she persevered. It was the way she did things. When life got hard – try harder. She hadn't come top of her year without cause, after all, but it had been a struggle with Harry gone.

_Harry_. She could think of him now without feeling as if her heart had been ripped out, but it didn't make it any easier. Ron had found her on her knees in front of the glass bubble, still in shock, and he'd been giggling and confused from an encounter with the Mind Reels. The loss of the third part of their trio had left them both unsupported and unstable. She didn't know how she would have made it without Ron, but he pulled her away from her books when she'd gone days without sleeping, just reading and reading, forcing herself to keep her eyes open and bury herself in something other than the real world. Without him…well, she would have become something entirely different. She didn't have to imagine the bitterness death brewed in people, she had seen it time and again. Katie, when Alicia had died. Emmeline Vance when his wife had died. Nymphadora Tonks when her father had died. Arthur, when Ginny had died.

Ron had proposed to her the day that they finished school, and she accepted the ring with a bittersweet feeling in her heart. Very much in love, the two of them, but so very aware that it was trying to compensate for someone who was no longer there. They'd toyed for awhile with the idea of having children, but Ron had put his foot down and pointed out firmly and calmly with a rare show of insight that they would just be using the child to fill a gap in their hearts. They had no right to. Hermione had agreed when he asked her if she would have called it some reference to or variant of 'Harry' . It drove the point home as if someone had dropped a bucket of cold water over her head.

"Any luck?"

"None." Hermione sighed. Miriam, her research partner, threw herself into a seat beside her. Cheerful little Miriam, very short, a little wide around the waist, with the kind of prettiness that came from her constant optimism rather than particularly stunning facial features. She reminded her just a little bit of how Tonks – she paused – Nymphadora had been before…

"Tricky thing he's asking really," Miriam said absently, leaning over to finger through her notes, scanning them appraisingly.

"A Soul Destroyer," Hermione murmured quietly, almost reverently.

"Nasty piece of work," Miriam agreed. "Complicated."

Hermione liked this side of her work partner, and yet it disturbed her at the same time. She seemed to possess the unique ability to look at everything as facts and figures on a page rather than reality. She saw the Soul Destroyer as a challenging project made up of a great deal of complex Arithmancy and spell weaving, not a curse that would undoubtedly wreak destruction on an entire future generation, leaving them in even greater ruin than they already were. At least all the sides _pretended_ that everything was fine and dandy. This spell would rob them of that chance at any kind of peace.

The problem was, Hermione thought as she began to pick through her notes again, that there was no substantial proof that the soul really existed. Albus had told her quite seriously that it did, citing several of the Black Arts that used it. What had he used as an example? Horcruxes. Well, Hermione had been smart enough to read through the lines when he said it, and she knew that he knew she had. He expected her to find a curse that would destroy the soul in anything it hit, if not a person's entire soul in one go. She'd looked the artefact up in the Black library, still filled with all the restricted and dark tomes that they'd collected over the years. Molly had been all for throwing them out after Sirius' death, but Albus had overridden her, saying that they might come in useful, yet. Finding Horcruxes hadn't been that difficult, although all the entries had been brief.

Frankly, compared to what Albus had asked her to create, they were the lesser of two evils.

What bothered her about this whole thing was that she could spend her life slaving away at it and not get any closer. People had done just that, for centuries! It wasn't completely as the former headmaster was making it out to be: an isolated idea. For the past millennia, more; for the length of time that people believed in the soul they had been trying to destroy it. The first problem was being able to identify it from everything else. There were health scans and monitoring spells that allowed you to evaluate everything else, but nothing on the soul. It was another thing people had been searching for – after all, if they could see it, provide irrevocable proof once and for all that it existed…well. That would be the first part of their problem solved right there. It was a foot in the doorway. From that point everything was, while not exactly a downhill slope, certainly a little easier. Once you'd got a handle on something then you could start finding out how to alter it, affect it, evaluate it.

Destroy it.

Not for the first time, Hermione wished that Neville were still there to work with her. His cool, practical logic had held her down when she became too caught up in tangles of her own making. The shy boy had gradually come into his own after Harry's disappearance, transforming from someone scared of his own shadow to a person who had a quiet confidence around them, surety, but never arrogance. He was much like Remus had once been, and the old werewolf had had a great hand in forming him into the man he had become. Indeed when they were introduced they had provided support for each other and maintained a close friendship until the day he'd died.

_Was murdered_, Hermione thought viciously, stabbing her pen into the parchment. _To call it anything less does not do him justice._

His death, and Ginny's, had been unprovoked, but she took a small piece of satisfaction in the knowledge that the pair of them had taken many with them. All around their burning house had been the bodies of Death Eaters, badly wounded and dying. They hadn't even found out who'd dealt the killing blow, but Hermione, like the rest of them, assumed that it had been the burning building that had really done it. Their deaths had galvanised the Order into action and drawn much support to them, and they'd fought better than they ever had before and ever had since, striking against the Dark Lord, trying to eliminate his followers one by one. They'd had an impact – not big, but nothing to sneeze at. Ron had been heartbroken, Hermione remembered, and a coldness had developed in his manner that had never quite melted away. That time she'd been the one to bring him back from the blackness that threatened.

"Couldn't find much in the library," Miriam commented, a tiny frown on her face as she scribbled something across their notes.

"Oh?" Hermione was jerked from her thoughts.

"No, nothing. Lots of history of course," she said flashing a brief smile to the other witch, "but nothing substantial. I'm guessing the work people has done in the past has been lost or picked up by someone else."

"Or destroyed," Hermione added darkly.

Miriam smiled grimly. "Yes. Not very nice assignment is it? I was looking up the various tests that had been done, but…well, there wasn't much."

The short witch continued talking, but Hermione had already tuned out. There was something about this, nagging on the edges of her thoughts that bothered her, and she needed to find out what it was. Ron called it 'the Itch', but she'd replied that knowledge is power. She was almost certain that members of the opposing sides had similar information. Albus, wouldn't after all, set them this task so abruptly if there wasn't a threat that another would complete it first, would he?

She frowned and pulled one of the books Miriam had brought down towards her. She would search until she got to the bottom of this. After all, her gut instincts where knowledge was concerned had never led her astray.

---

**A/N:** I feel I should make a few things clear: first off, no one in this story is really nice or has good motivations. They're all pretty horrible. The government's corrupt, Larch is a power-hungry weirdo, and Su is a racist bigot. Secondly, the Harry/Su relationship is not going to be romantic or even loving. Both Su and Harry are going to get a lot more unpleasant as the story goes on, so when they finally meet each other it's going to be about mutual benefit, and use and abuse.

The fact that none of the characters really inspire any sympathy is one of the reasons I had such trouble writing more of this fic – that and the fact we're about 60k words in and the end isn't in sight. In fact, nothing's really happened. Harry does his first bit of duelling in chapter _fourteen_ that's sitting on my hard drive. So, ah, more chapters are on their way, but just like the first 9 they're quite tl;dr. Happy Christmas and Merry New Year and all that.


	10. Occlumency

**Chapter Ten: Occlumency**

Nymphadora impacted with the ground heavily as Bellatrix' arms slid from around her torso, letting her fall with the brunt of the Apparition impact. Pain wracked her body, the curse worming its way into her again, until she'd struggled unsteadily to her feet and it sullenly abated, command fulfilled. That was the problem with the blood curses - all commands lasted until they were rescinded or contradicted. When she could finally see straight again, vision clearing, she immediately processed that she wasn't in the dungeons she had been expecting. Through the light buzz of pain still playing over her, she cursed herself for her stupidity. The first thing they taught you when you became an Auror was to think like the enemy – predict their reactions. She'd be in the dungeons if she posed a threat.

She didn't, from any point of view, pose a threat.

The second thing they taught you was to mind your surroundings. She was in what looked like the typical entrance hall of a pureblood home, but she didn't take much note of the colour schemes and elegant marble flooring so much as the entrances and exits. She'd been on enough raids to know that almost all ancestral homes looked the same. Twisting, ignoring the prickle of pain - purely from aching muscles this time, she turned to fix her aunt in her precarious mental map of the room. Bellatrix stood behind her, watching, waiting, savouring the moment and what would no doubt be a two toned expression of horror and despair dawning across her face. Nymphadora could feel it growing even, but was powerless to stop it. She hated herself, for the first time in seven years.

Exit pinpointed, she made a last desperate break towards the door, all of her senses turned up to full, hairs rising on the back of her neck in anticipation of the spell, heart racing wildly as she came closer and closer to the door, step by step, until her few seconds of impending freedom were broken by the cool voice of Bellatrix.

"Stop."

Nymphadora struggled a few more stumbling steps, feeling as if the little coils of pain that had wormed over her skin had sharpened into darts, all plunging simultaneously towards the core of her body, piercing lungs, heart, the delicate fleshy membranes of her skin and muscles as if she had been stuck through with a thousand pins, spears, and she was collapsing, shaking, shivering, tasting blood in her mouth, at the back of her throat. She let out a hacking cough that held the remnants of a scream that she hadn't been able to make at the time, and there was red on the smooth marble of the floor before her. Returning to herself, ever so gradually, she knew where her lowest point was, and she had reached it. This weakness…she knew she hadn't a prayer. Foster hatred and take opportunities she might, but she knew in her gut that those opportunities wouldn't present themselves for a long time yet. She still for a long moment, feeling the pain lessen, processing her situation.

_Doomed,_ something in her brain whispered.

"Where are we?" she asked finally, pulling herself to her feet again, trying to obey her aunt's first command even while she swayed where she stood. No point in protesting anymore, she told herself viciously. The faster you break, the faster you sacrifice noble morals like dignity and pride, the easier you adapt. Adaptation was the law of Metamorphmagi; they were like flowing liquid, always bending and shifting into new shapes, new circumstances, like the reed in the wind. They survived through acceptance and adaptation.

"The manor of the Dark Lord himself," Bellatrix replied, with a hint of glee, of arrogance and pride in her expression.

Nymphadora had grown rusty in her freedom, she realised. It would take her longer than it should have.

"Follow me," Bellatrix commanded. She seemed born to make commands, cold and imperious as any wizarding aristocrat when she wished it, and Nymphadora hesitated because of that imperious nature just a moment after she turned, just long enough to feel the growing thrill of the curse as it pushed against her and she pushed back against it. The worming feeling across her skin deepened, and she fell into step behind the witch almost automatically. She would get used to it.

_Trapped_, she repeated to herself mentally, trying to crush down the panicky fight or flight instincts that rose in her chest at the mere word, because by the time they reached the end of this corridor with its lovely windows and closed doors, by the time they entered whatever room was their destination, she had to have accepted it all. Embraced it. In time she'd learn to love her new-found condition – there was no other way to do it, it was either that or go mad. Or die. She refused, above all, to die. If she had been seven years younger, she thought, she would have thought that her death justified something to someone, spited the enemy, vindicated the ally, martyred herself. Not anymore. Her death would just mean that someone in the New Ministry would file a little piece of parchment into her folder that declared her 'missing' or 'deceased', and the next day they would clear out her office, dismantle her wards, and push someone else into her position. What she was would have been categorised and redistributed. No one cared enough about her to risk storming the Dark Lord's personal headquarters. She doubted anyone ever had.

Bellatrix strode arrogantly before her, giving Nymphadora ample time to examine her estranged aunt. The woman had aged well, considering she must have hit her sixties. The last time she'd seen her had been years ago, across the battlefield. Even witches and wizards started looking a little worn at that age. She had about her, if Nymphadora were able to observe her objectively, the kind of self-assurance and lithe grace that simultaneously inspired envy and disgust. Here was someone who had no doubts about their own worth, intelligence and beauty. She was a little heavy around the jaw to be considered classically beautiful, but it gave her an aura of strength that would otherwise have been absent. This wasn't a fair-haired damsel by any stretch of the imagination.

But she'd aged, Nymphadora thought snidely, taking pleasure in the thought. Her body was lean and muscular, but there was a gaunt quality to her, the skin around her eyes and neck had begun to wrinkle, to hang more loosely, her hair had never quite regained the lustre it had had before her stint in Azkaban, and what little she had seen of the woman's skin had been marred by scars, some fine and elegant, others puckered and ugly. Living constantly on the edge hadn't done her any favours.

She is powerful, Nymphadora reflected as impartially as she could, but she's grown old.

Bellatrix flung open the double doors at the end of the corridor with a flourish, and then the next pair, and the next, until they reached the grandest of the set, done out in metal engravings that Nymphadora barely had time to see before they also swung back, revealing a cavernous hall beyond, without a speck of colour to break the stony grey. The ceiling stretched perhaps two or three stories, with an arched roof that she unwillingly spared a glance to take in. As she glanced over it she felt herself caught, slowing as she was drawn into the details, noticing that the ceiling was not, as she had thought, simply uniform stone and rafters, but engraved with similar spiralling shapes as those that had been on the doors, but they were so far away that even squinting she was unable to pick them out. Her footsteps lagged until the burning sensation across her skin rippled and she pulled herself back to the present. Bellatrix was halfway across the room before she finally dragged her gaze away and pushed herself to catch up.

At the far end was a raised dais that held a single stone chair, which to Nymphadora looked more like a throne than anything she would class a chair. A shiver went through her then, as her situation truly hit home. Her aunt had absolute power over her. The Dark Lord had absolute power over her aunt. She was a single woman with no particularly extraordinary powers, in enemy territory. All the shape changes in the world wouldn't help her now.

She couldn't tell if she was relieved or disappointed that the throne-like chair sat empty, with Bellatrix pausing before it. Had the Dark Lord himself been present, she didn't think she would have been able to stomach the situation, not all at once. With the drama of it built up with each set of doors they progressed through, emerging in this menacing hall to face what had become a mythical demon over the years, she reflected that she would probably have fainted or thrown up or soiled herself with fear. A strong stomach and self-control was one thing – she'd seen men disembowelled, been the one disembowelling them, but the Dark Lord, Voldemort, was something different altogether. You'd have to be a fool not to fear him.

On the other hand, if he'd been sitting in the chair like she'd expected him to be in the instant that she took in the hall, at least the first part would have been over.

_For what? This isn't a count down to the finish line,_ she thought bitterly, and stopped for a moment mid-stride as a frisson of pain began to fight against her rising anger. _Repress it!_ she chastened herself, crushing her desperate fury back down into the black ooze at the back of her brain. She couldn't _afford_ to be rendered immobile by the curse at the moment.

"The Dark Lord is out," Bellatrix stated unnecessarily, looking momentarily lost, her grand entrance gone to waste. With a lazy flick of the wands she still held loosely in her hand, she conjured chains that looped around Nymphadora where she stood, manacles clicking into place around her wrists, ankles, neck. Bellatrix' eyes traced them from where they restrained her niece to where they emerged from the tip of her wand, and tugged them experimentally. Nymphadora stumbled forwards a step, and met Bellatrix's eyes for a brief moment, anticipating her next move perfectly, but not having time to prepare for it. In one swift motion her aunt whipped her wand back, dragging the younger woman to the floor with a dull thump.

Bellatrix cackled delightedly. "My master will be so pleased. He will reward me above all others!" she crowed, voice echoing hollowly around the vast room.

Nymphadora spluttered, then began coughing and convulsing as the curse burrowed into her skin again through her violation of her aunt's command. She wasn't standing up anymore, she thought desperately, tugging back against her chains, but her feet tangled and her ankles flopped uselessly, sending her back to the floor, and it was burning, burning, burning in her limbs…

"Oh, that's right, isn't it pretty?" Bellatrix laughed, voice drifting in ups and downs through to her. "You're still under command."

The words faded into mere sounds, until all that came through were bits and pieces of her laughter, sounds she couldn't even identify as laughter, not even as sounds anymore, as she was consumed by the pain, worse than before, worse than ever before, because it wasn't giving in, she was breaking, breaking, broken, accepting, grateful, and it still didn't leave her, and she thought that if it went on any longer, any longer than this and she would-

"Lay on your back like the little whore you are."

Peace.

Nymphadora panted; on arm moved in uncontrollable spasms, and her muscles shivered in exhaustion. The ceiling shifted imperceptibly above her.

"You'll be all burned out by the time I'm done with you." The soft rolls of her voice fell over her brain like feathers, too light to feel, too rich not to perceive, until they were all she could think about, all she could concentrate on. She didn't know who was speaking, but she knew that something horrible would happen if they stopped. "You know, I used to like Andromeda, as much as any sister could. Narcissa always looked like the one who would end up weak enough to fail us. She was so prettily delicate, and she attracted so much attention from the wrong sort. She was the kind boys sent flowers and wrote soppy poetry to. We'd hex her and hex her, and we had so much _fun_ with her, but in the end it turned out to be your _bitch_ of a mother that let the family down. She always was my 'dear' cousin's favourite, after all, but I put the mutt down, and I'll do the bitch too."

A pressure on her side made her moan, and the voice had stopped, and the intricate swirls and patterns in the ceiling were sinister, menacing…

"I could do you too, little puppy, after your mother goes down. She's too close to the old fool, too crafty. She married that Muggle for a reason, I know, she had to. She wouldn't otherwise – she was too crafty," Bellatrix repeated pensively, no longer even paying attention to the weak girl that lay at her feet, one shoe still resting heavily on her ribcage, preventing her drawing in too much air. "He knew something. Andromeda, mother's little favourite. We were so sure she would be the next Matriarch, but then…why? _Why!_" she shouted suddenly, lifting her foot and bringing it down sharply. Nymphadora grunted in pain and tried to curl in on herself, but the curse kept her with her back to the floor. "You were close to her weren't you? You were her only daughter, you little brat, you must know! Why did she betray us?"

Nymphadora winced, painstakingly pulling the threads of her mind back together as her aunt raved. She'd caught very little of the witch's ramble in her disorientation, but she'd caught enough. With painful deliberation she called her mother's face to mind and morphed.

It would be a last 'fuck you' before she was dragged too far under to even consider it.

"Because of you," she spat out, trying to force a languid smile, the kind of infuriating smile that her mother always gave people who asked too many questions, all honey and smoke.

Bellatrix screamed incoherently, kicking her again and again, making her chains rattle against the floor with metallic clatters, linking to the wands that her aunt dragged back and forth, and all the while she held the same shape, trying to keep it steady, keep her sense of victory up, keep her anger down, keep her revulsion down, keep her dizziness back as a blow landed to her temple, and then she was gone, shifting through a cycle of colours and shapes without any control, like a series of flip book images one after another.

"Bella, I do hope you're not damaging my newest possession."

The wild-eyed witch froze like a deer caught in headlights, in what would have been a ridiculous pose were it not for the bloodied woman at her feet and the burning mix of fervour and rage across her face. Slowly, almost mechanically, she lowered her leg and dropped to her knees, hard.

"Master," she murmured, pressing her forehead against the floor, "master, I'm sorry, I'm sorry master, I wouldn't…"

The Dark Lord smiled. "The blood lust is on you Bella," he observed.

"I'm sorry master, she's yours, I'm sorry," she continued.

"I'm proud of your achievements," he said lazily, moving forwards from where he stood in the doorway in smooth steps, light cloak fluttering out behind him as he moved. Eventually he came to stop by the broken figure that was still bound at his servant's feet. "It seems that your instincts were correct after all, and you know how I like to see my servants plans play out well. You have my favour, Bella."

"Master!" she exclaimed quietly, sound muffled against the stone, and then her eyes flipped up to his, still alight with the excitement and emotion from the moments before. "I will not let you down master, I am your most faithful…"

"Perhaps," the Dark Lord remarked, absently trailing a hand over her hair as he circled the youngest Black. The girl was quite beaten, but beneath the cuts and bruises from Bella's little tantrum he could see the endless potential of the Metamorphmagus as she drifted through various forms before his eyes. It was like watching a film reel, and it filled him with anticipation just imagining the potential of the girl before him, not in the least limited to the pleasures he and, after he had grown weary of her, various others were sure to get from her. If she could be fully bent to his will, and it seemed it would take very little if he took over from this point onwards, then she would be invaluable. No wonder the New Ministry had let her have such liberties in their organisation. They'd harvested young talent when it was ripe for the taking.

"Your wand," he commanded, holding out a hand to the dark-haired woman prostrate before him, and felt a small smile tug at his lips as the two lengths of wood touched his palm. He curled his fingers and dispelled the chains with a flick of the wand. Absently, he examined the foreign wand. Nymphadora Tonks, about nine inches, willow. Very pliable. A Metamorphmagus in his hands, he thought as he watched her shift, to be moulded like warm wax. They were the essence of change. They were evolution in its physical form. A Metamorphmagus, given the right stimuli, would be unable to resist altering, conforming, reflecting the changes he would create. She would become exactly what he made her into. She could be the perfect servant, he reflected, if only there were a way to stop her from changing once he had her where he wanted her. If she escaped, if others treated her differently…well, despite that, she would prove an interesting plaything. He would have a chance to experiment.

"Leave us."

Bella looked up at him with wide eyes, dark violet, taking a moment to process what he was saying, the thought to protest surfacing and dipping back under the stream of consciousness once more like a whale cresting the wave, ponderous but deliberate in its submergence.

"Of course master," she replied softly, all that anger faded, leaving her a little disorientated, but the fiercely intelligent mind behind her eyes was catching up so very quickly. He enjoyed browsing through her unguarded thoughts at these moments, evaluating what she saw and felt from her point of view, briefly. He watched her get to her feet, bowing gracefully and retreating to the double doors out of his sight. She would linger about the corridors for several hours, he knew, not only because he had her wand, but because her jealousy forced her to remain, to construct more and more fantastical situations in her mind, wherein her niece usurped her position of power. How easily it could be done, after all. He smiled to himself, stepping over Nymphadora's shifting form to his stone throne.

Watching her was poetry. Satisfaction. Her shifting was slowing gradually, but he had all the time in the world to wait for her to wake. He would enjoy every moment of it.

Outside, Bellatrix paced.

---

The Occlumency professor was a stooping woman whose grey hair hung in swathes about her head, obscuring her face, and moved in a loping gait that gave Harry the distinct impression that she was more used to ambling around a dim, low-ceilinged basement than anywhere approaching a normal house. She stood hunched behind Larch as they entered, and the comparison between the commanding, confident figure of his host and that of the woman that followed after was enormous. Whatever Harry had been expecting, it hadn't been this. He suddenly understood just why Fudge had always been trailing simpering morons; just by dint of the woman's presence, Larch's had been magnified tenfold.

"Harry, meet your Occlumency instructor, the charming Ms. Vesper."

There was a sardonic twist to Larch's mouth as he spoke that threw Harry. He glanced from his host to Vesper and back again, trying to keep the questioning look off his face and, he suspected, failing miserably. The woman didn't say anything, merely shifting to her other foot and letting her hair cover her face even more completely. "Ms. Vesper owes me a favour that she can carry out by teaching you," Larch said by way of explanation. Harry got the vague impression that he was trying not to laugh. "If the teaching is anything less than excellent please inform me immediately so that I may – ah – set things right."

"All right," Harry agreed warily.

"You may use this room. It will do as well as any other." Larch gestured vaguely around the lounge that Harry had been reading in. "In the meantime, I have things I need to pursue."

That left Harry alone with the peculiar woman, who shifted from foot to foot again and said nothing. Harry gave her a leery look and remained where he was, waiting for her to make a move. Months ago, he might have rushed to fill the awkward silence with nonsense, but instead he resigned himself to waiting her out. At some point she would have to do or say something, and from that he'd get a clearer idea of her. Larch had certainly seemed smug about something when he'd introduced her, but he wasn't sure what.

The silence stretched.

The woman coughed a little, making her hair sway back and forth, revealing a flicker of a shadowed nose and mouth and then covering them again. Harry breathed out sharply through his nose.

"I'm your Occlumency professor," she said suddenly, unnecessarily, as if she had been considering saying that for the past minute or so, working up the courage.

"Yes," Harry agreed slowly. Silence fell between them again that he wished would be broken quickly. He had a horrible vision of future lessons where the silence in each passing moment was as thick to breathe in as the air in a room without oxygen.

She sighed heavily and slumped onto one of the nearby sofas. Harry followed her into a seat opposite, watching her guardedly. She shifted about a little, adjusting baggy robes around her bony frame and sniffed loudly before falling back into silence. Harry drew his legs towards him, sitting cross-legged.

"Larch's boy then?" Her voice was abrasive and nasal to Harry's ears, peculiarly at odds with the way she looked.

"I'm not-" Harry began, unsure of what she meant. "I'm not related to him."

"He didn't say you were." She nodded knowingly.

Harry felt his brow crease in a frown. "Uh…yeah."

"Studied Occlumency before then." She sniffed again, the sound reaching into a snort. It sounded as if she were ill. Harry drew his legs a little closer towards him; there was something off-putting about the woman, something grubby and disgusting.

"Yes."

"Didn't work out then?" She gave a gruff chuckle and shook her head, grey hair swinging back and forth. "No, no. I can see it didn't." Harry was suddenly powerfully reminded of Trelawney. He hoped this woman knew a little more about what she was doing than his old failed Divination teacher. He wondered briefly if she was even still alive. "I can see it."

"You can see what?" he asked, not impolitely, but not completely respectfully either. He was becoming a little impatient.

"You," she said sharply, and began fussing with one of the pockets in her robes. "You need to be less open. I can see you. I can _see_ you." Harry wondered whether that was meant to mean something to him, but whether she thought it did or not, he'd missed the point. He was a little insulted at being called 'open' with his emotions by someone so distinctly uncomfortable.

Finally she pulled out a long length of string with something hanging off the dirty white thread, something bronze that caught the light and threw it back dully. It reminded him for the briefest moment of the Time Turner Hermione had shown him, but it was a different shape… Despite himself he leaned forwards a little, craning his neck to see what she held in her hand. Vesper glanced up, and he caught the gleam of her eyes behind the mass of hair, and then she closed her palm over the little bronze object and brought it to her chest.

"Not now," she mumbled.

"So what _does_ happen now?" Harry asked pointedly.

Vesper inhaled with a grunting noise. "Larch told me you didn't do well with your last Occlumency professor," she said, ignoring his question.

"No," Harry replied tersely.

"Mm." She made a strange noise at the back of her throat. "What went wrong?"

"I…" Harry blinked. "He…" He stopped himself, pausing to think about the question, _really_ think about it. There was a multitude of reasons why their lessons hadn't worked, but no one conclusive thing he could think of to answer with. Snape had hated him; he'd hated Snape. Snape had just dropped him in at the deep end and never bothered to tell him how to 'clear his mind'. He had been so infuriated with the man that he really hadn't tried. He'd been drawn away by those dreams…

"Yes?" Vesper prompted. Harry started out of his memories.

"He…we didn't like each other a lot," he said, knowing it sounded weak and rushing to make his point more clearly, although she didn't seem in any hurry to interrupt. "He'd just say 'clear your mind', and then cast the spell and I'd have to block it. He didn't tell me how," he finished, bitterness swelling in his mind at the thought of his most hated professor. The man who'd been the cause of everything that had happened, the Department of Mysteries incident…he wouldn't have been here if Snape had taught him how to 'clear his mind'.

"Hm." Vesper seemed unconvinced. Harry could almost see the cogs turning in her mind, already drawing conclusions - the _wrong _ones, because Snape had most definitely been in the wrong in those lessons. Certainly.

_You have to shoulder some responsibility Harry, you know that_, he told himself, trying to force back his anger. _You never learned; you never really _tried _to learn._

"So that's it then: you just have to 'clear your mind'?" Harry asked irritably.

"There's more to it," Vesper huffed. "Occlumency is a _precise_ art." The word 'precise' was enunciated particularly nasally, the woman's tones making Harry think of nails down a blackboard.

_She's no Snape,_ he reminded himself as he watched her.

_You don't know that yet_, a little voice in his mind replied, and he grimaced inwardly.

"Right," Harry said shortly.

Vesper sniffed again. "It is the study of becoming emotionless. Every memory you have has a marker– maybe you get angry when you think of them, or sad, or happy – that's what the Leglimens looks for."

She stopped to speak, seeming to think that this answered everything. Harry bit his lip, frustrated.

"So, what?" he prompted, unsure of what he wanted to ask, but wanting more to be explained to him anyway.

"You have to learn to take those feelings away – how you do that is your own business."

"But that's…that's impossible!" Harry exclaimed, feeling absurd to be saying so, but meaning it anyway. It seemed impossible. Nobody, surely, would be able to completely remove all the emotion from their memories. Emotions in memories were what made a person…well…a person! To take them away, then…you'd end up with something inhuman. Like Voldemort, he realised with a shiver.

"Not impossible, undesirable," Vesper corrected.

"Who'd want to do that?" Harry asked slowly, already knowing the answer. He knew, yes, but he needed confirmation.

"Dark wizards mainly. Politicians. Businessmen. People who it matters that their business stays there own." She shifted in her seat again.

"But it's not…permanent, is it?" Harry asked with a frown. He didn't exactly relish the idea of becoming an unfeeling monster.

"Not all of it."

"What parts aren't?" Harry pressed. He was being forward, yes, but he wanted answers.

"Merlin boy!" the woman grumbled. "Didn't you read a book before I came here?"

Harry had the dignity to blush. "No."

"Next time, make sure you read something," she told him.

"I will," Harry agreed easily, "but about-"

"Three types of Occlumency, if you want to break it up that way," she interrupted. "In reality it's not that simple. There's the basic method; you just try to remain emotionless – very easy to crack for any Leglimens worth their salt. The second: You want to hide something, but still remember it for what it was?" She paused, and Harry almost opened his mouth to reply before she continued on as if she hadn't noticed. "You mask the emotion. Dull it down. A Leglimens can still find it if they search hard enough, but so can you. You want a memory never to be found?" Another pause. "You completely remove the emotion around it. You'll never be able to look at it the same way again, but no one will be able to find it."

"And this…completely removing emotion, this is difficult?" Harry asked. Morbid curiosity made him ask.

"Of course it is. No one can completely remove it, not really. That's it made simple. You remove as much as possible, and then you hope for all you're worth that they don't find it," she said blandly. "It becomes easier, the more you do it."

Harry frowned and realising that he'd been leaning forwards to listen he relaxed back against the sofa again. It all seemed very strange to him, but it certainly explained more than Snape ever had. He supposed that if he removed the emotions tied to an important memory, one that had been formative to his character, then he'd end up as a very different person. If he removed several of those memories, then…well, he didn't think he'd ever be able to recognise himself in the same way. A person had to have some pretty powerful secrets to be able to bring themselves to prune away bits of their personality.

"And," he began, wetting his lips a little, "are there ways to get these – these emotions back?"

Vesper let out a rasping laugh. "No sonny, once they're gone, they're gone."

Harry thought of lightening striking earth – nothing would ever grow there again. He was starting to realise why Occlumency and Leglimency were such unpractised arts.

"Let's get started quick, or Janus will get on my back about it," Vesper interrupted his thoughts, letting the little bronze instrument fall from her palm to swing back and forth from the string. "This is what Occlumens call a Stingray."

Harry eyed it warily. "What does it do?"

Vesper smiled, and he could see it through the curtains of her hair. "It lets the blind see again, in a manner of speaking."

From the folds of her sleeve she withdrew a wand, pointing it briefly at him before swinging it round to tap the little metal instrument. It began to hum, a low sound that sounded to Harry much like a bumblebee. Across from him Vesper sighed, and the wand moved up to her face, sweeping aside the stringy grey strands of hair to reach her eyes. As Harry watched, more of her face was revealed, and he caught a very unpleasant glimpse of the mutilated skin above her nose. He flinched back involuntarily at the sight.

"Pah!" Vesper spat, tapping her wand once on her forehead and drawing it quickly across her eyes before letting her hair fall back over her face. The hum of the bronze instrument lowered a pitch, and her wand pointed towards Harry once more. "So, you've heard the explanations. Like your last Occlumency professor said: clear your mind. You're in for a bumpy ride."

Harry grimaced. "What does that do?" he asked again, eyeing the humming machine with a flip-flopping feeling in his stomach.

"Cataracts," Vesper mumbled.

It took a moment for Harry to process what she'd said, and another to understand what it had to do with the Stingray, but it eventually clicked. With eye contact so essential in Leglimency, it was unlikely she'd be able to launch a proper attack if she couldn't see well. Somehow he'd imagined that wizards didn't get things like that.

"Then the Stingray helps-"

"Focus my Leglimency, yes," Vesper finished for him, an irritable bite to her voice making itself increasingly apparent.

"So it was made just for that?" Harry asked, knowing his questions were bordering on rude, but not really finding it in his heart to care as he might have.

"No." Harry waited for the rest of the answer but none was forthcoming. It seemed he'd overstepped his limit. He made a mental note to see if any of Larch's books had something on Stingrays.

The device hummed at a steadily increasing frequency, and Vesper hunched even further over, cradling it and giving a loud sniff. When the hum finally reached a volume that felt like breaking point to Harry's ears, she gave it a sharp tap and muttered the incantation under her breath.

For a moment Harry twitched back, waiting for something to happen, the gap just long enough between the spell and the impact for him to consider that it hadn't worked, to drop his guard, before he was flying back from the world in a flurry of images before his eyes, one after another until they became a gradually slowing blur, spinning round and round like a roulette wheel. He caught snippets of one memory, the scent of mud and grass from another, a sharp whistle right next to his ears, a ghostly blow to the arm, a murmur in the distance, and then he was settling, slowing, he could feel Vesper latching onto something, searching, nearing…

_Harry stood in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom ear to the door of one of the stalls trying to hear what Hermione was saying…he was sprawled across the floor of Gryffindor common room, admiring the lights on the tree, looking up to see Ron walk down the stairs, a broad grin on his face…he was sitting at dinner, hearing a silence, looking up to find Hermione dashing towards him, no longer petrified…he was watching Dobby warily remove a bundle of letters from the rags he was wearing, seeing the familiar handwriting…he was sitting in Transfiguration, laughing as Ron's beetle grew long green fur and got its legs tangled…_

Harry found himself struck with an awful sensation in his heart, a painful mix of anguish and joy, spearing him so that he couldn't find it in himself to struggle against the onslaught, merely letting it wash over him, bathe him in the glowing feelings he got as he relived some of the best times with his friends. How could he fight this? How was he supposed to shut away what he felt about his first and closest friends, his constant companions for five years?

"Enough," Vesper cut through the stream, moving her wand away. "You're not even trying. If this is what you were like with your last teacher…"

"I wasn't!" Harry protested, coming back to himself, the ball of happiness in his chest fading. "I…he never searched for happy memories."

Vesper sniffed loudly again, and wiped the sleeve of her robe absently under her nose. "I'm searching for them because they're strong. What _you_ have to do is throw off those feelings."

Harry nodded reluctantly.

"Now, on the count of three."

---

When Vesper left, Harry's head was pounding with a dull throb, as if the insides had been slowly filed down, leaving them rough and scored. The lesson had been simultaneously better and worse than those he'd had with Snape, mostly because of their eerie similarity. Whilst Vesper didn't shout at him or deliberately wind him up with deeply unpleasant memories, she was just as ruthless in her attacks. They'd begun with happy memories, working through his entire range of emotions before they'd ended on those that made him despair. He felt drained, wrung out of shape and colour.

The worst part, he reflected slumping onto the grass, was that that he could no longer blame Snape for his utter failure to learn the subject. Granted, he hadn't had it made easy for him, but he'd always assumed that Snape was keeping something from him, some secret that he could use to crack the formula and become an Occlumens just like that. The lesson with Vesper had shown him that he'd just been thrown in at the deep end, not taught faulty methods. Thinking about that, he realised that however much he hated him, Snape wouldn't have done more than wind him up during the lessons. In fact, the reason he had been so spiteful was likely because all he _could_ do was wind him up; he wouldn't have gone against Dumbledore's orders, or sacrificed what could have been a valuable tactical position in the war. His own life as a spy had also rested on Harry's ability to learn Occlumency. With that in mind, Harry had to fully face the fact that the debacle at the Department of Mysteries was entirely his fault. _He'd_ been the one to throw away the lessons by violating the other man's privacy. _He'd_ been the one to not even make a token effort at learning Occlumency. _He'd_ been the one to fall for the vision Voldemort had sent him.

And it burned. How could he have been so short-sighted? How could he have been so delusional? Having made his realisation, it seemed inconceivable that he could have blamed Snape and believed his own lies. He hadn't tried. He hadn't learnt. He'd put his friends in danger, Sirius in danger, all because he'd let his hatred of Snape get in the way. Frowning to himself, Harry made a mental promise never to let his vendettas against one person get in the way of him seeing the big picture again. He'd force himself to push back all these doubts and suppositions and look at things with as unbiased a view as he could.

Shaking his head, Harry absently tugged at the blades of grass beneath his fingers, looking over the garden. So he was going to end up pruning bits of his memories away. He'd recall them, but they'd be flat grey to him – nothing. A strange feeling rose in his chest as he imagined doing that to the memories he had of Ron and Hermione, and Hogwarts. He wouldn't. There was no reason to…was there? Harry wasn't so sure anymore. Something called to him about it all; the idea of being able to think back to his friends without that familiar twinge had its appeal.

They would be adults now, years older, and they wouldn't want to have him back in their lives. He was realistic enough to know that they'd have given him up by now, worked through their loss. To him, it had only been a few months, but to them it had been fourteen years. Nearly a lifetime. And he'd given them up…

Inwardly he cringed. There were memories he had of horrible times, things he didn't want to touch. The New Ministry…they'd taken everything. A spike of hatred rose in his chest at the thought. Only Merlin knew what they were doing with the information and samples of his flesh and blood he'd given and they'd taken. Unconsciously he tongued the rough patch on the side of his tooth, and promptly bit down on his tongue, concentrating on the sting to take his mind away from it.

Ron and Hermione had potentially been put in danger because of his inability to resist the pain of the Cruciatus. He didn't want to see them again and know every time he looked at them that he'd given them up under torture, even if the information was likely useless. They might not know, but he would. That he had given them up, and that he'd do it again if he was put in the same situation. Everyone had their breaking point.

Groaning, Harry pushed himself to his feet. Obviously what he'd intended to be a pleasant breath of fresh air hadn't been what he needed. Running a hand through his hair, Harry's frown deepened. He'd go to the library, bury himself in work. If he was tired enough, he wouldn't dream, and he wouldn't think of all of the mess that had piled up at the back of his brain.

---

The summons had been brief and succinct. A short jab of pain sizzling up his arm as he slept, sprawled out over the bare mattress he'd conjured before he collapsed. He'd ducked his head under the rusty taps and swirled a gob of water around his mouth, spat it back into the sink, grimaced in the mirror, ran a considering hand along the stubble on his cheeks and fumbled through his pile of clothes for his boots.

Mulciber was not an organised man.

Tied his boots, flicked a wand at the door to activate his wards, apparated. He'd arrived in the entrance hall barely a few inches away from Bellatrix Lestrange, who looked as wild-eyed as she had when they'd first been released from Azkaban. She hadn't said anything, but she'd _stared_, and he'd felt something flicker in his brain in response, something he couldn't pinpoint, and that unnerved him. The mind was his earthly paradise. He understood it like few others could. When things went wrong, when things changed that he was unaware of in the first place – that worried him.

Backing away from the dangerous looking woman, who still hadn't said a word, he'd headed towards the main chamber. He assumed his lord was there, but he couldn't be sure. Lord Voldemort liked to keep his servants on their toes. It created excuses to remind them of their place. Mind games, simple tricks. He knew them and recognised them, but coming from the Dark Lord it was better not to fight them. His position, his profession, meant that he was far more aware of the games his Lord played, but his Lord knew this, and handled him yet more subtly so that not even he could perceive exactly how he was manipulated. The Dark Lord was exceptionally skilled when it came to manipulation. _People like Bellatrix Lestrange_, he thought, _don't need anything more complicated than a few grandiose gestures and a pat on the head_. Crazy bitch that she was, she was completely zealously dedicated to their Lord. That didn't take much management to sustain.

The doors parted before him, one after another, and he could hear them hitting the stone walls with a screech and grind as he pushed them open.

The hall stretched before him, dark and immense. There was something about it that reminded him of Hogwarts every time, as if his master had twisted the place they all knew so well to fit his character. At the far end was the throne, but it was empty. His Lord stood before it over another figure, prone…perhaps one of the younger Death Eaters or someone from the opposition? Was that why he had been summoned? But if it was someone important then his Lord would deal with them himself, and if they weren't then they wouldn't be here at all…curious and yet more curious.

It was quite some time before he reached his master and dropped to his knees, but even this close he was unable to discern the identity of the huddled figure, although he was quite sure now that it was a woman. Her face was so marred with blood and bruises, turned away from him, as to be unrecognisable. There was a tang of burnt flesh that caught in his nostrils as he breathed in, faint, but noticeable when one knew to look for the signs. Burning…that was Bellatrix, he was sure of it. His master didn't use such crude methods, and with her waiting outside…

"Mulciber."

He bowed a little deeper, feeling a flutter of pride rise in his chest. The tone of the voice, a casualness, amusement…others such as Malfoy might have taken the spotlight in more recent years, but he had been with the Dark Lord since his first rise. He had been hand picked from the lower years of Hogwarts when his Lord departed to follow, aid, and serve. They had between them a kind of familiarity that money could not buy, born out of years of faithful service. He understood his Lord and the ways in which he worked better than most, not much, but an important fraction that set him apart from his master's other followers. Malfoy was a youngster in comparison to him, still inexperienced and inept, although he had proved to be a fast learner.

"My lord."

"Do you know what this is?" The Dark Lord gestured vaguely at the battered woman on the ground before them.

Mulciber took a moment to appreciate the juxtaposition of her black robes and blood splatters against the floor before examining her properly. Thin frame, obviously suffering the after effects of some curse or other, though not the shakes and frothing from the mouth that came from extended rounds of Cruciatus. If he had to bet money on it, he'd place his lot in the region of some of the torture curses targeted to specific body parts. No need to go all vulgar and start really cutting off someone's limbs when a spell will make them feel and imagine it just as well. She was clutching…what? A hand over her chest. Maybe the heart then – very symbolic.

The assessment took little more than a few seconds, but he found himself without an appropriate answer. He could analyse what had happened to her, the conditions, but not what or who she was. A magical creature? He briefly toyed with the idea, before brushing it away. His master was careful with his relations with magical creatures – torture this bad would imply a breach of their alliance, unless it had been negotiated. The vampires in particular didn't take well to their servants being harmed.

"I do not know." Lord Voldemort always valued an honest answer over lies or half-thought out guesses.

"This," his master replied, "is a Metamorphmagus."

Hearing this, Mulciber looked at the woman with new appreciation. What had previously been little more than a breathing corpse had become quite different…such possibilities quite literally lying at his feet. He turned, feeling Voldemort's gaze on him, watching his reaction, and a thought prickled at the back of his mind.

"Could this be the youngest Black?" he asked with a half-smile as things clicked into place. Bellatrix' pacing. The unexpected summons. The two who had been held back after the last meeting.

"Nymphadora Tonks."

The Dark Lord was still watching him as more memories fluttered forwards, each vying for his attention. He felt the light press of his lord's mind on his own, watching his thoughts as he processed them. It was both reassuring and deeply unsettling. He dealt with other people's minds, not the other way round; had it been anyone other than his Lord, then he would have driven them right back into the darkest pits of their own brains.

_Nymphadora Tonks_, he thought absently, restraining the urge to reach up and rub a hand along the rough line of his jaw. _Nervous habits_, he reminded himself. Bellatrix' niece, the girl responsible for the Blackthorn murders. The woman who'd been behind the intelligence that led to the destruction of the Manchester base and the compromising of the Ireland and Lancaster bases. So, he had a personal investment in this newest acquisition. It sent a thrill through him to think that the bloodied figure before him was Nymphadora Tonks.

"I see," he said slowly. "And you required me to…alter her?"

Lord Voldemort laughed, chilling him to the bone. "No, I am quite looking forward to that part myself."

Despite himself, Mulciber felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck at the sound. Even after this long serving him, when his master laughed it was never a good sign. It meant instability in his mood. His Lord was calculatingly mercurial, and his attitude switched from one extreme to another in the blink of an eye; all a follower could learn to do was adjust to each change as smoothly as they could.

Mulciber smiled humourlessly. He could imagine just how effectively the Dark Lord would go about breaking her…a Metamorphmagus. Quite the prize.

"May I ask how you acquired her my lord?" he asked, voice rumbling in his chest. _Nymphadora Tonks_. He couldn't get the name from circling his mind like a broad-winged bird now that she was right there before him.

"You may ask," Lord Voldemort replied, amused. Mulciber nodded fractionally, and the Dark Lord regarded him. "You have been in my service many years Mulciber - a very faithful servant…skilled in what you do." Lord Voldemort began to move, pacing softly round the vulnerable Metamorphmagus, making no attempt to avoid her splatters of blood where they pooled on the floor. "I have plans that I will be putting into motion that will require your expertise. For nearly sixty years now you have been by my side…one of the oldest parts of my family," he smiled eerily. "You have seen your companions come and go yet you have remained truly loyal; you understand well what happens to those who betray me."

Mulciber let a real smile cross his face, remembering with dark satisfaction the many times he had witnessed his Lord take revenge on the sneaks and fools who had thought that they could turn their backs when they got in too deep. Unbidden, the memory of Severus Snape's death returned to him, the man broken beyond belief. There had been no others after his betrayal.

It was perhaps the first time that Mulciber had got a true inkling as to the extent of his Lord's powers, and admiration had blossomed in his chest as he watched the delicate, systematic and, above all, inventive destruction of the traitor. For people like Bellatrix or MacNair blood and gore was all that they could appreciate, but Mulciber had seen beneath the surface to what others had missed and it had inspired him. Severus Snape had been as proficient as he was in the Mind Arts, and was a particularly adept Occlumens. Leglimency had never been his strong point, preferring as he did to defend, but he had been far more than adequate. To fool his lord for all those years he must have been exceptionally good. He could admire that. Mulciber had been one of the few Death Eaters present that understood just what effort it would have taken to reduce him to the wreck he had been before they killed him, and he could admire that in his Lord more than anything. Perseverance, control, and terrifying, awesome power. He had seen the like only in Albus Dumbledore, and the two were not comparable.

"There was a reason that you are granted the privilege of your place within my inner circle," the Dark Lord interrupted his reverie, placing a foot on the Metamorphmagus' cheek and tilting her head to the side. "You are not young or impressionable, nor arrogant and headstrong. You act decisively, and with forethought, and you understand the value of silence, which few others do." His eyes roamed over the Metamorphmagus' face, considering. "The New Ministry has stood unopposed for too long, and our battles with them have been at a standstill, but I have seen a future…I have seen a key to their doors. There is much in this girl's mind that I plan to use…she has the potential to become a most valuable asset." He looked up sharply, meeting Mulciber's eyes. "When the time comes, you will accompany her into the New Ministry and begin to usurp control from Peasgood. There are potions to permanently change your appearance, and you will not be discovered." Mulciber could hear the threat in that quite clearly.

The Dark Lord must have seen the hesitation in his face, because he laughed cruelly and continued, stepping back and letting the Metamorphmagus' face fall back to the floor. "You have spent too long in the shadows my cowardly friend, and it is your time to do what others have been doing for you." He smiled, and Mulciber swallowed, nervous sweat beginning to bead on his brow and under his armpits. "Oh yes…I know very well how you delegate your tasks to save your own skin, and you have lost me many a servant through your self-serving fear. I do not tolerate my followers avoiding their duties, and your history has earned you the highest…compensation…for all that you have shifted onto others. You will be entering the lioness's den, poisoning her in the safety of her own home. Through the New Ministry you will gain access to the other sides and topple them as you will topple the Ministry. I will accept no failure in this; you will succeed because your life depends on your success. I will not be so merciful as I have been before."

Mulciber felt something in him crumble at his Lord's chilly tones. They spoke of most unpleasant experiences that he really didn't care to endure again. Really, he was a horrible coward. How could he have thought that he could get away with sitting in his little flat, shunting whatever he could onto the lower echelons through the means of compulsion and coercion? All his years of age, and he still made the simplest mistakes.

"Now…" his Lord continued thoughtfully, looking at the Metamorphmagus again, almost…distracted. Mulciber noted this; it was not something that happened often. "I will require the seven part serums, three strengths of analgesic potions and a dose of morphine. Tomorrow you will bring me the less potent variety of the Helldancer, a general set of emotionally disruptive potions and a calming draught."

"Yes, my lord." Mulciber repressed his unease by running over the various brews that had been requested in his head. They were quite standard for what he assumed the Dark Lord would be doing, but he knew that appearances were deceptive; most of his Lord's experimentation would be done either through words or spells.

"I suggest that you request a profile of the New Ministry officials from Lucius' son. You will begin once I am finished with our newest guest."

Mulciber recognised the dismissal and bowed stiffly. With one last glance back to the limp form at his master's feet he headed back towards the doors of the hall. He sensed rather than saw the spell before it impacted, careful magical tendrils coiling around him, his mind rushing to identify the alien presence. Some variant of compulsion charms, associated with memory…but he could understand no more. In his mind things were replaced and overwritten, quickly and efficiently. He sighed. He hadn't even got the chance to write down his thoughts into his journal before they were mutated. All he was left with was the knowledge that something had been altered with his experience of the summons, without any way to affirm just what.

Bellatrix had moved on from the entrance hall when he returned, but he felt uneasy with her still lurking around the building. Mulciber shook his head. He would go home and write down the events as they occurred in his modified memory, and set to collecting the necessary ingredients for his master's little project. _Then what?_ he asked himself. He permitted himself a faint smile. He could always check up on one of his own projects.

Horace Slughorn was long overdue for a visit anyway.

---

**Author's Notes:**

Occlumency – I've seen too many fics with 'Occlumency shields' or the visual building of fortresses; I've used the device myself in fact. But for this fic, I thought I'd do something a little different, so there'll be no 'Occlumency shields' Harry can snap into place whenever he feels like it, and which can be 'breached' or 'torn down'. Occlumency will rely almost entirely on emotional control and some skilful mental dodging on his part. Just like duelling, it'll take time for him to become a formidable force to reckon with - so no outsmarting a master like Albus just because he thinks he's got him all figured out and can go up against someone who has 150 years tops knowledge on him straight away.


End file.
